So my players encountered a hazard today. The hazard had hit points. Are those the hit points for a 5' square of the hazard? Or for the entire thing? The hazard covered a dozen or so 5' squares.
So my players encountered a hazard today. The hazard had hit points. Are those the hit points for a 5' square of the hazard? Or for the entire thing? The hazard covered a dozen or so 5' squares.
What are the details of the Hazard? They aren't all the same.
GLOOMGLOW MUSHROOMS HAZARD 5
ENVIRONMENTAL FUNGUS
Stealth DC 26 (expert)
Description A field of grass-like fungal filaments amid
clusters of softly glowing, long-stalked mushrooms.
Disable Survival DC 22 (expert) to remove a 5-foot-patch
without triggering the mushrooms.
AC 21; Fort +13, Ref +9
HP 52; Immunities critical hits, object immunities,
precision damage; Weaknesses cold 10
Glowing Spores [reaction] Trigger A creature moves into the
mushrooms’ space or damages the mushrooms. The
mushrooms can’t use this reaction if the damage
was cold damage. Effect The triggering creature and
all creatures within 10 feet are sprayed with itchy,
distracting, glowing spores and must attempt a DC 22
Reflex save. On a failed save, the creatures become
sickened 1 and stupefied 1 (or sickened 2 and stupefied
2 on a critical failure) and take a –4 penalty to Stealth
checks until the spores lose potency in 24 hours or are
removed. This requires washing them off by bathing in
water for a minute, a prestidigitation spell, or a similar
measure allowed by the GM.
It's the reference to removing a 5-foot patch that got me thinking.
I'm not sure the correct answer, but it makes a big difference since 52 HP per square would mean 260 HP total (if 5 squares).
If you can identify the hazard, someone with Ray of Frost can remove the hazard trivially, not accounting for the amount of time required to cast enough to deal the damage.
That particular hazard is kind of odd, because it doesn't actually list its size, nor does it have a BT like most other hazards. The area of the map that it's listed as being is also a vertical shaft.
When my group encountered it, the GM just ran it as being a thing we fell past in the shaft, so there wasn't really any chance to disable it, it was just a thing that hit you on the way down.
I've only seen one hazard explicitly call out that he HP was for the total area of the hazard, which makes me think that the hp is per square by default.
However with the level appropriate ac, and hp, with object immunities/crit immunity, this one looks like its probably meant to be hp for the total.
I agree, that with the HP given it seems like it should be the total for a CR 5 hazard, and not per square.
The Dream Pollen Pods Hazard from EC is similar. The way I ran it was that I gave each of the 4 Pods 1/4 of the total HP.
That particular hazard is kind of odd, because it doesn't actually list its size, nor does it have a BT like most other hazards. The area of the map that it's listed as being is also a vertical shaft.
When my group encountered it, the GM just ran it as being a thing we fell past in the shaft, so there wasn't really any chance to disable it, it was just a thing that hit you on the way down.
Oh, man. it was in the shaft? Ugly. My PC's saw it from a distance and blasted their way to the shaft. It used up resources, but didn't expose them to the hazard.
Oh, man. it was in the shaft? Ugly. My PC's saw it from a distance and blasted their way to the shaft. It used up resources, but didn't expose them to the hazard.That particular hazard is kind of odd, because it doesn't actually list its size, nor does it have a BT like most other hazards. The area of the map that it's listed as being is also a vertical shaft.
When my group encountered it, the GM just ran it as being a thing we fell past in the shaft, so there wasn't really any chance to disable it, it was just a thing that hit you on the way down.
It really was no big deal, as it was one of the few times that Prestidigitation was actually useful.
This hazard appeared in
So, it's certainly not out of the question that this is just a kind an oversight on the writer's part. The flavor description for the area certainly implies the entire area is covered.
It's been several months since I ran it, and the HP didn't come into play with my party because they made survival checks and had access to prestidigitation.
The actual answer is that it is unlikely to really matter how much HP any of it has - damage will trigger the hazard (cold won't, obviously). And since the hazard doesn't have a reset entry, that's the end of that patch's relevance, as it can't trigger a second time.
And, if the hazard is the entire collection, then perhaps actually all of them should go off at once, regardless of which patch is triggered, and then you're fine. It does make actually disabling them with survival kind of pointlessly risky and slow if there's literally anyone in the party with a ranged attack, but...
Where HP does matter is cold damage. The most likely source of cold damage is probably ray of frost, and if someone has that I'd just handwave the castings to say they cast it until all of the mushrooms are frozen/dead and move on. Second most likely is an alchemist attacking with a cold bomb, and that's probably where HP would come into play, and I'd just say it's the HP for the whole hazard, because otherwise it's just a terrible option instead of a reward for using the "right" tool against the weakness. At that point, if each separate square can take damage, one hit probably wipes out the whole hazard due to the weakness.
Rico, that's a good point. Triggering it, such as with any ranged attack from more than 10ft away, should cause it to go off and it doesn't reset.
So damage the patches once from 15ft away and you're safe.
So damage the patches once from 15ft away and you're safe.
The reaction hits everyone within 10 feet and the triggering creature. Not sure jut being 15 feet away will protect you if it's not cold damage.
So damage the patches once from 15ft away and you're safe.The reaction hits everyone within 10 feet and the triggering creature. Not sure jut being 15 feet away will protect you if it's not cold damage.
That's a good, albeit messy in implications, point.
Also, that introduces a different consideration: Is it 10' away from the triggering creature, or from the mushrooms?
However, since mushrooms don't have any senses, I would rule that they have no idea where ranged attacks came from to retaliate if someone shoots an arrow/spell at them from 15 or more feet away. In my mind it's just a big poofy cloud of spores localized on the mushrooms.
And one of the weirdly common mistakes in this edition seems to be writers neglecting to specify ranges for effects.
And one of the weirdly common mistakes in this edition seems to be writers neglecting to specify ranges for effects.
That does seem to be true, and I generally think you have the right of it.
On the other hand, if it was just meant to hit everyone within ten feet of the mushroom, why specify the triggering creature separately?
And one of the weirdly common mistakes in this edition seems to be writers neglecting to specify ranges for effects.That does seem to be true, and I generally think you have the right of it.
On the other hand, if it was just meant to hit everyone within ten feet of the mushroom, why specify the triggering creature separately?
I'd guess that the original intent was probably to have a single instance of this stuff, maybe in the chokepoint of the entryway, and whoever stepped in it first triggered it around them, then it was done. Then kinda everything else that adds questions stems from the 5' patch disabling rule, and maybe the art order or the description was changed to fill the whole room with mushrooms, and we just sort of ended up with some inconsistencies.
Hard to say, though. It doesn't all line up either way. Thankfully, it's pretty much one and done - the players get past it, and then by the next session you forget the rules were a little rough there.
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
The reaction hits everyone within 10 feet and the triggering creature. Not sure jut being 15 feet away will protect you if it's not cold damage.
So damage the patches once from 15ft away and you're safe.
That may be the RAW, but that does seem like nonsense to me.
Considering you could shoot it with a bow from 100ft away, how do the spores reach me? It is written that way, but it just doesn't make sense to me. I think it probably just hits everything in 10ft and that's it.
And, what happens if you have a catapult that you shoot it with? Does the catapult get attacked?
I think the only sensible ruling here is it targets anything within 10ft of the patch.