As my dragon sorcerer has recently picked up the much anticipated prying eye spell, I'm wondering what kinds of options might be at my disposal in terms of indirectly targeting others with spells.
The Targeting rules make it clear that you need to be able to sense the target with a primary sense, unless the GM says otherwise for unusual cases (such as a blind character targeting someone via touch).
It would seem to me that prying eye makes that a non-issue. Through the sensor my character can see targets around corners just as easily as if she were standing there using her naked eyes.
The Line of Effect rules seem to be a littler trickier, saying that "You usually need an unobstructed path to the target of a spell." The key word there is "usually." I don't believe the default rule takes into account situations like actively using a prying eye. Therefore, I think it would work out fine. Nevertheless, this is enough of a gray area that a GM would be well within their rights to shut it down if they felt it inappropriate for their game, and so one should probably expect table variation.
I for one would not allow someone use this to hurl a lightning bolt or similar spell around a corner or anything like that, but target spells such as message or perhaps phantasmal killer would likely work fine. Spells like fireball are a little more questionable as they don't have targets that need to be "seen" and have a history of starting with the caster and flying in a straight line towards the point of origin, but that no longer seems to be the case in this edition. In any case, the caster would still need to abide by all the other rules of spellcasting, such as keeping the target within the targeting spell's range.
What do you think? Would you allow it at your table? Why or why not? Do you believe it to be a creative application in keeping with the rules? Or a shameless exploit? Whatever your answer, please expound on it.
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You need to ask the question: could the spell under normal circumstances go around a corner.
Spells that clearly fall in this category: spiritual weapon or flaming sphere.
Spells that never work: lines
Now the first set are mainly sustained spells that can change direction after the initial cast. They should be fine but could have other restrictions like a closed door.
There are others that are less clear. Is a fireball a bit of guano flying in a line and explode or does the bit that explodes ,appear’ at the target and causes the blast?
Does conjuration work around a corner?
Need some more thoughts here.
The "usually" for line of effect is to allow for spells that make exceptions. I don't think it has anything to due with senses IMO, but rather whether something's blocking the path. And no, I would not allow Phantasmal Killer to be cast like this.
A mage in darkness can cast an AoE "50' north of myself" fine, but if there's a wall closer that's where the effect stops/occurs. What you could do with Prying Eyes is bypass an effect (like Darkness, mist, etc) that blocks vision (but not effects) so the enemy has a hard time targeting you, but you see them fine. I could see this being very valuable in foggy terrain where you're dropping bombs on them, but they can't even see you.
But around curves, past barriers, and the like? No, not unless the spell specifies so.
Yeah, I am also falling into the camp of 'shameless exploit' for allowing it to allow targeting that bypasses line of effect rules. Things like casting Phantasmal Killer or Fireball around corners is a no from me.
Could help for targeting things that you couldn't otherwise see though. Things like seeing (and therefore targeting without penalty) something on the other side of an area of magical darkness like Castilliano mentioned, or on the other side of bushes that are providing concealment.
I might even let it bypass something like magical blindness - letting a caster use the Prying Eye sensor instead of their normal vision - though that is probably even more up for debate. It depends on what it means by 'normal' when talking about your normal visual senses that it is using: your typical, non-magically-modified senses; or your current visual abilities.
On the one hand, if it always uses your unmodified senses, then you could use the spell to bypass blindness from an enemy caster. On the other hand, if it uses your current senses, then casting Darkvision on yourself would also work through the sensor.
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As my dragon sorcerer has recently picked up the much anticipated prying eye spell, I'm wondering what kinds of options might be at my disposal in terms of indirectly targeting others with spells.
The Targeting rules make it clear that you need to be able to sense the target with a primary sense, unless the GM says otherwise for unusual cases (such as a blind character targeting someone via touch).
It would seem to me that prying eye makes that a non-issue. Through the sensor my character can see targets around corners just as easily as if she were standing there using her naked eyes.
This is IMO where you take an unproved hypothesis.
I see nowhere that Prying eyes can be used for anything other than looking at things. And definitely not that it allows you to target things for spells as if it were a precise sense.
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Prying Eye in conjunction with Familiar Master's Familiar Conduit would work fine, assuming you can sustain a spell for free each round. Otherwise, if there's a solid object between you and the target, that's a hard no according to the Line of Effect rules. The eye doesn't change where the spell originates from like Familiar Conduit does, so it won't matter that you can see around a wall, the wall still blocks you.
Prying Eye in conjunction with Familiar Master's Familiar Conduit would work fine, assuming you can sustain a spell for free each round.
Now that's an interesting notion! If the familiar were invisible, do you think using it as a conduit would break the the illusion? I think perhaps not, since it's the caster casting/attacking and not the familiar.
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I use the archetype and I run it where I need to be able to see the familiar and have line of effect to it to use it at all. So invis is a no-go unless I can see invis. Enemies should be able to tell I'm the one casting the spell, it's just coming out of the familiar. This makes the familiar an easy target, so I also use Sanctuary on it.
I use the archetype and I run it where I need to be able to see the familiar and have line of effect to it to use it at all. So invis is a no-go unless I can see invis. Enemies should be able to tell I'm the one casting the spell, it's just coming out of the familiar. This makes the familiar an easy target, so I also use Sanctuary on it.
Not sure why you'd need to see your familiar. Familiar Conduit says you need line of effect not line of sight (though I can certainly see how it might make things easier).
In any case, it looks like Communal Sustain at 12 with a friend or Effortless Concentration at 16 by yourself is a good way to go about handling the Sustain action.
Right but if you don't know where it is you can't reliably target a creature. You wouldn't know if your familiar is out of range or not, so being able to sense the familiar's position is important.
Don't characters have psychic links to their familiars? How could you not know where it is?
Your familiar is literally an extension of your character. Not knowing where it was would be like not knowing where your arm is.
Don't characters have psychic links to their familiars?
Not that I am aware of. There is an empathic link that works within 1 mile. But I am seeing nothing about a sense of direction to it.
There may be familiar Abilities that would add that. For a Witch there is also Witch's Charge that you could target your familiar with.
So, yes. If you want to cripple a Witch, kidnap their familiar instead of killing it.
So, yes. If you want to cripple a Witch, kidnap their familiar instead of killing it.Yea I'm gonna have to use that in a home game, lol
Make sure to put it in an opaque, sound proof cage of some sort. Otherwise the following day the witch will perceive their familiar's whereabouts--and perhaps the familiarnappers' identities--through the familiar's own senses.
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Make sure to put it in an opaque, sound proof cage of some sort. Otherwise the following day the witch will perceive their familiar's whereabouts--and perhaps the familiarnappers' identities--through the familiar's own senses.So, yes. If you want to cripple a Witch, kidnap their familiar instead of killing it.Yea I'm gonna have to use that in a home game, lol
Nah that's no fun. Let the witch Share Senses with the familiar to get a hint of where to go on the rescue mission.
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I have followed this thread with interest. I'm surprised everyone agrees you can't cast a fireball around a corner - while in my view fireball is the quintessential around the corner spell - just not in the way Ravingdork would like to use it.
Situation:
You are in a 10 foot wide corridor running South to North. 50 feet ahead is an X-junction. You expect enemies in the side corridors but can't see them. What do you do?
You cast a fireball at the center of the junction. The fireball is a burst. So it hits everyone who is <15 feet on either side West and East inside the East or West corridor.
The caster has no (direct) line of effect to any enemy 10 or 15 foot into the corridor to the East and West. I would claim that players would call foul if the fireball only hits an enemy in the South-North corridor and nobody in the side corridor.
As I said - this is NOT the way Ravingdork likes to use his prying eyes and if there is agreement that anyone in the side-corridor is not hit by the fireball then the rest of the argument stops here. But I start with this example which I have seen multiple times on a table being adjudicated this way that you can 'target' someone around a corner.
So geometrically - what is happening?
We have one line of effect - 50 feet - from the caster to the middle of the x-junctions. This is followed by multiple lines of effect with lengths 20 feet from the center of the x-junction in all directions. More or less that is how a burst works.
There are still some areas in the blast that are not hit - for example if someone is behind the wall NE NE from the center of the blast as no line of effect will hit that square.
As I said - this is not what Ravingdork was hoping for. But it should lead to a subset of spells where Prying Eyes would help. You need >1 line of effect for it to work.
All burst spells work that way - but Prying Eye won't allow to target anyone inside the East or West corridor directly. All it would help is to decide to cast in the center, to the West or the East to maximize the number of enemies in the blast.
But what happens to spells with multiple lines of effect?
Electric Arc - the first target has to have a line of effect from the caster. But the description seems to imply that the second line of effect originates at the first target and not the caster. Therefore it should allow to target a second target around a corner (if the spellcaster can see that target and it has line of effect from target 1).
Chain Lightning is a stronger version of Electric Arc. Same logic applies.
This also leads to Flaming Sphere and Spiritual Weapon. The first target has to have direct line of sight. For the second (and later targets) does the spell go back to the caster and out again or allows line of effect from the last location?
Let me know where my logic is wrong? Happy to listen.
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Electric Arc implies but does not specifically explain how that works, so both targets would still have to be 30 feet from you. But yes everything else works as you described, except Chain Lightning needs line of effect to all targets.
Ah - missed the small print in Chain Lightning. Only quickly looked it up and didn't see the sentence later.
It could be an indication that RAI they want line of effect always for anything even if it leaps around (apart of a burst) and that would be against the argument.
Thanks
Edit: The Chain Lightning also implies it moves from target to target The electricity arcs to another creature within 30 feet of the first target, jumps to another creature within 30 feet of that target, and so on. if you stop reading here (what I did) and don't spot that later it implicitly says and you must have line of effect to all targets.