|
1 person marked this as a favorite.
|
Pathfinder Lost Omens, Rulebook Subscriber
We had a situation where an allied dragon breathed on a enemy trapped in a resilient sphere where they had succeeded at their Reflex save (so the sphere had AC 5, hardness 10, hp 10).
The breath from the dragon did 60 points of damage, so does the sphere only have effective hp of 20 to the breath, or does the dragon need to save against the sphere also? And assuming the breath does 60 damage, it does destroy the sphere, what happens to the rest of the damage, does it hit the creature in the sphere?
|
1 person marked this as a favorite.
|
The dragon doesn't save against the sphere because he was not the target of the spell. If the targtet succeeded on the Reflex save agaisnt the sphere, it has 10 HP, no matter where damage comes from.
As for the damage, I would personally say the creature inside the sphere takes no damage. A dragon's breath is an instantaneous effect and in the instant it happens, the creature is still within the sphere. The dragon does not have line of effect towards the ceature inside the sphere.
So the breath destroys the Sphere, the creature inside remains unharmed.
DnD & PF have given various answers to what happens to an AoE that blows through a defense. It's often a door and some effect that would travel through the door, i.e. a lightning bolt. Whatever that rule is, it should apply here too.
Except I haven't seen such a rule in PF2 yet (nor have I looked). So for now I'd say only the Sphere gets damaged because as Blave noted, it was the only target exposed when the blast applied damage.
At my own table, and lacking a formal ruling, I'd likely alter that for cinematic reasons and because flimsy walls (etc.) shouldn't block so effectively. Simply remain consistent and your call should be good.
|
1 person marked this as a favorite.
|
As a force effect, Resilient sphere should block line of effect. And as the breath is instantaneous, then i would as well allow the one inside to not suffer any damage from it, just the sphere breaking.
Castilliano wrote: DnD & PF have given various answers to what happens to an AoE that blows through a defense. It's often a door and some effect that would travel through the door, i.e. a lightning bolt. Whatever that rule is, it should apply here too.
Except I haven't seen such a rule in PF2 yet (nor have I looked). So for now I'd say only the Sphere gets damaged because as Blave noted, it was the only target exposed when the blast applied damage.
At my own table, and lacking a formal ruling, I'd likely alter that for cinematic reasons and because flimsy walls (etc.) shouldn't block so effectively. Simply remain consistent and your call should be good.
Personally, in examples like the door and a lightning bolt, I usually give the person on the far side of the door greater cover, for +4 to their reflex save.
I would think the sphere would function like a shield, so remaining damage should pass through to the creature within it.
I would avoid treating it as a shield since shields have different rules for applying damage and when.
|
1 person marked this as a favorite.
|
If in the case of a barrier vs an aoe, and you don't have excess damage blow through the barrier, then a bit of cardboard will protect you from a nuke.
I think that is a unfair comparison. Maybe more like a back draft would be a closer example.
shroudb wrote: As a force effect, Resilient sphere should block line of effect. And as the breath is instantaneous, then i would as well allow the one inside to not suffer any damage from it, just the sphere breaking. So if the sphere protects you from AOE's regardless of the damage/hp of the spell or sphere then at what lvl would a spell that's a reaction that creates a 1 hp sphere/wall of force be? Cause you are basically saying that a 1 hp sphere can tank 100000000+hp dmg as long as it's an instantaneous effect.
Timeshadow wrote: shroudb wrote: As a force effect, Resilient sphere should block line of effect. And as the breath is instantaneous, then i would as well allow the one inside to not suffer any damage from it, just the sphere breaking. So if the sphere protects you from AOE's regardless of the damage/hp of the spell or sphere then at what lvl would a spell that's a reaction that creates a 1 hp sphere/wall of force be? Cause you are basically saying that a 1 hp sphere can tank 100000000+hp dmg as long as it's an instantaneous effect. Exactly. Which is why I'm thinking that anything greater than the hardness gets passed on to the creature within.
A Strike is also instantaneous, isn't it? But anything beyond the hardness of the shield is taken by the person holding the shield.
Timeshadow wrote: shroudb wrote: As a force effect, Resilient sphere should block line of effect. And as the breath is instantaneous, then i would as well allow the one inside to not suffer any damage from it, just the sphere breaking. So if the sphere protects you from AOE's regardless of the damage/hp of the spell or sphere then at what lvl would a spell that's a reaction that creates a 1 hp sphere/wall of force be? Cause you are basically saying that a 1 hp sphere can tank 100000000+hp dmg as long as it's an instantaneous effect. you may tank 10000000+ hp, or you it may break from a pebble.
That said, i don't think using hyperboles like yours is helpful in these circumstances.
It may not make sense in real or "cinematic" world that the effect protected you, but "line of effect" doesn't make sense in general in that sense nor "instantaneous".
For the nukes and such examples, not one single explosion is "instantaneous"
For dragon breaths, they last several seconds in every single movie i've seen, probably more than 1 round of continouus channeling.
Again, from pure rule perspective, if you dont have line of effect for an instantaneous effect, you dont affect your target.
Now, it does indeed seem silly in some circumstances, but that's what the GM is there for, to make houserules to patch up the system's weaknesses.
A single breath weapon getting blocked is not something that i think is worth altering the rules. Something much more cinematic and story impacting, like meteors crashing a castle ? sure
shroudb wrote: For the nukes and such examples, not one single explosion is "instantaneous" Once you start dealing wth magic, it becomes hard to reason about how it works. How fast is a magic missile?
Explosions not being instantaneous is quite intuitive at a human scale, but once you get into the engineering of a defense, things can be functionally equialvent to instaneous if there's no time for any system to react. Going deeper into physics, the same thing can happen with the universe itself.
Moppy wrote: shroudb wrote: For the nukes and such examples, not one single explosion is "instantaneous" Once you start dealing wth magic, it becomes hard to reason about how it works. How fast is a magic missile?
Explosions not being instantaneous is quite intuitive at a human scale, but once you get into the engineering of a defense, things can be functionally equialvent to instaneous if there's no time for any system to react. Going deeper into physics, the same thing can happen with the universe itself. and that's my point.
"instantaneous", "line of effect", and etc are all game terms. Gimmicks that have no correlation to reality.
How can a breath be instantaneous? It needs time to travel from mouth to the end of the cone, probably lasts a few good seconds, like rounds of actual combat and etc.
The rules, the gimmicks we use to make the game work, are there to facilitate how can we use dices to imitate effects.
It's important to differate two things:
narrative vs mechanic
A narrative effect superseeds the rules, a mechanic effect, doesn't.
So, if the only thing you want to do is calculate damage, you follow the rules. When the desired effect is drama, story, narrative, you can put the gimmicks into the trashcan and use storytelling to describe what happens.
Sometimes, the two coincide, sometimes not.
That's why i said that if the only thing you care is if effect A dealt damage over effect B, go with the mechanics (line of effect vs instantneous effect), if if you care about the narrative only just say whatever you like happenned, if you care about both, go with something inbetween.
shroudb wrote: Moppy wrote: shroudb wrote: For the nukes and such examples, not one single explosion is "instantaneous" Once you start dealing wth magic, it becomes hard to reason about how it works. How fast is a magic missile?
Explosions not being instantaneous is quite intuitive at a human scale, but once you get into the engineering of a defense, things can be functionally equialvent to instaneous if there's no time for any system to react. Going deeper into physics, the same thing can happen with the universe itself. and that's my point.
"instantaneous", "line of effect", and etc are all game terms. Gimmicks that have no correlation to reality.
How can a breath be instantaneous? It needs time to travel from mouth to the end of the cone, probably lasts a few good seconds, like rounds of actual combat and etc. I think we strongly disagree about that, actually.
I was saying some things are functionally instantaneous.
How you do detect a laser being fired at you? Any warning signal you send can't start until the beam crosses the detector, then the warning moves towards you at the same speed as the beam ...
Where we do agree, is that it should be based on common sense and narrative.
Moppy wrote: shroudb wrote: Moppy wrote: shroudb wrote: For the nukes and such examples, not one single explosion is "instantaneous" Once you start dealing wth magic, it becomes hard to reason about how it works. How fast is a magic missile?
Explosions not being instantaneous is quite intuitive at a human scale, but once you get into the engineering of a defense, things can be functionally equialvent to instaneous if there's no time for any system to react. Going deeper into physics, the same thing can happen with the universe itself. and that's my point.
"instantaneous", "line of effect", and etc are all game terms. Gimmicks that have no correlation to reality.
How can a breath be instantaneous? It needs time to travel from mouth to the end of the cone, probably lasts a few good seconds, like rounds of actual combat and etc. I think we strongly disagree about that, actually.
I was saying some things are functionally instantaneous.
How you do detect a laser being fired at you? Any warning signal you send can't start until the beam crosses the detector, then the warning moves towards you at the same speed as the beam ...
Where we do agree, is that it should be based on common sense and narrative. well sure, if we're talking about lasers, so "light", speed of light is basically instantaneous (as far as human brain comprehension can visualise) if you only use a split second of it operating.
but those are outside of the scope of the current discussion since we're mostly talking about physical effects, like flaming breaths rolling out of the mouths of dragons.
I can't think anyone visualises that to be a split second of fire that appears and disappears in less than the blink of an eye.
shroudb wrote: but those are outside of the scope of the current discussion since we're mostly talking about physical effects, like flaming breaths rolling out of the mouths of dragons. *magical* physical effects.
I don't know how they work.
From a rules sanity point of view, I'd assume that an AOE would blow through a barrier, unless it was explicitly stated in the description of the barrier.
Moppy wrote: shroudb wrote: but those are outside of the scope of the current discussion since we're mostly talking about physical effects, like flaming breaths rolling out of the mouths of dragons. *magical* physical effects. Yes, magic produces the physical effect.
But do you honestly tell me that when you visualise a dragon breath you see it as something that starts and finish in 0.00001 secs?
shroudb wrote: Moppy wrote: shroudb wrote: but those are outside of the scope of the current discussion since we're mostly talking about physical effects, like flaming breaths rolling out of the mouths of dragons. *magical* physical effects. Yes, magic produces the physical effect.
But do you honestly tell me that when you visualise a dragon breath you see it as something that starts and finish in 0.00001 secs? What color is the dragon?
Blue is lightning.
Moppy wrote: shroudb wrote: Moppy wrote: shroudb wrote: but those are outside of the scope of the current discussion since we're mostly talking about physical effects, like flaming breaths rolling out of the mouths of dragons. *magical* physical effects. Yes, magic produces the physical effect.
But do you honestly tell me that when you visualise a dragon breath you see it as something that starts and finish in 0.00001 secs? What color is the dragon?
Blue is lightning. that i agree. On a lightning breath i could see it. On an acid/fire breath, i cannot, and etc.
But my end line would still be that i would try to differate the mechanics from the narrative:
is is just an encounter of A vs B? go with mechanics. Dragon used ability A, PC used ability B. B countered A
is it something with more narrative impact like the PCs trying to protect the princess while the dragon keeps breathing on them? I'll go with a mix, so effectively the Barrier would function like Shield (remaining damage goes to the princess)
is it something purely narrative (the dragon swoops from the skies and rains fire on the battlements)? Mechanics go to trashcan and i just describe the scene.
Recent threads in Rules Discussion
|
