So, I have been preparing a fire kineticist for a series of adventures my GM wishes to run. I was looking at the level 1 impulses and Scorching Column brought up a question.
The impulse creates a 10 feet diameter cylinder, whose squares become hazardous terrain until the end of my next turn, applying 1 fire damage to creatures moving through ('A creature takes 1 fire damage each time it moves into one of these squares'), and it can be sustained up to 1 minute.
My question relates to how this hazardous terrain damage applies to a large creature. If it was outside the area, and move in 5 feet into two of those squares, does it take one fire damage, or two instances of one fire damage, for each square entered ? If it takes another step, fully into the cylinder, moving its body to overlap all of its affected squares, does it take four instances of one fire damage ?
And lastly, if it starts stepping out of the cylinder, does it still take damage ? What I mean is if some of the squares the creature covers leaves the area, but at least one remain, dos it take damage from that part of its body which moved to that square ?
Thank you in advance for any answer !
Most of the load for hazardous terrain appears to be in the text of the specific hazardous terrain effects. The ones I skimmed through appeared to share some form of "creatures passing through the terrain take X damage for each square they enter."
Unless I'm overlooking a rule that contradicts me here, I would apply that to mean if a larger-than-medium creature entered more than one square of such terrain during a single space of movement, they would take the sum of however many squares they entered worth of damage. And even when they begin exiting the hazardous terrain, they would still take damage for squares their trailing body spaces have to "enter"
I would total the damage of all squares entered before applying IWR, not treat them as separate instances
Edit: so to answer your specific examples; 1. I would give them two squares worth of damage as one, not two instances for the first space of movement, 2. Four squares worth of damage as one instance for entering fully, and 3. One square of damage for their trailing space that had to "enter" an affected square
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Baarogue wrote: Most of the load for hazardous terrain appears to be in the text of the specific hazardous terrain effects. The ones I skimmed through appeared to share some form of "creatures passing through the terrain take X damage for each square they enter."
Unless I'm overlooking a rule that contradicts me here, I would apply that to mean if a larger-than-medium creature entered more than one square of such terrain during a single space of movement, they would take the sum of however many squares they entered worth of damage. And even when they begin exiting the hazardous terrain, they would still take damage for squares their trailing body spaces have to "enter"
I would total the damage of all squares entered before applying IWR, not treat them as separate instances
Edit: so to answer your specific examples; 1. I would give them two squares worth of damage as one, not two instances for the first space of movement, 2. Four squares worth of damage as one instance for entering fully, and 3. One square of damage for their trailing space that had to "enter" an affected square
It's not as straightforward unfortunately.
While RAW initially would make the damage per square, the subsequent Large PC rules seem to flip that rule.
Quote: When moving through an area that is only 5 feet wide, a Large PC can move through the space but treats each square as difficult terrain. Moving through a narrower space that does not obstruct Small creatures requires Large PCs to Squeeze. This is typically relevant only in encounter mode; when shopping in town, a centaur can typically enter a building intended for Medium-sized creatures even if it takes them a little more time to duck through the doorway. When a Large PC moves through hazardous terrain or a similar obstacle that causes damage based on the number of squares the PC moves through, they take damage only once for each 5 feet of movement—a minotaur shouldn't take four times as much damage for crossing a burning field as a human! While the text here refers to PCs, with the example and explanation given, I cannot in good faith see why it wouldn't be applicable for NPCs as well.
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Balance wise, keeping in mind that there are 3d hazardous terrains like columns and cubes (even the one mentioned in the OP is a column) and that tokens have height as well, it would mean that a Large creature would take 4x damage, a Huge 9x and a gargantuan 16x damage walking a single step forward.
Even something as low as 7 damage per square, would mean that a Gargantuan creature would take 112 damage per step without a save. Making it (imo always) TGTBT.
Yeah, the large creatures already will have a tough time of it since it's harder to maneuver and takes more increments to pass through. And as shroudb's pointed out, the other interpretation can get absurd fast.
Yeah, if you interpret it as more than 1 damage instance per square of directional movement you end up with insane amounts of damage very quickly.
IMO, it's pretty clear larger creature HPs were not scaled to account for this kind of thing. So, if you like huge or larger creatures dying very easily due to AOEs/terrain damage and size then be my guest I suppose. But I don't think it's the intended way.
The problem grows even more dramatically if the monster has any weakness, or you have a class that can cause weakness (Thaumaturge).
And I'm not sure if the double reworking of the weakness rules addressed the potential for every step to trigger weakness damage or not.
Claxon wrote: IMO, it's pretty clear larger creature HPs were not scaled to account for this kind of thing. For balance concerns, that is my biggest item of note too.
Since size doesn't automatically give more (or less) HP, then movement through hazardous and damaging terrain shouldn't automatically deal more (or less) damage.
shroudb wrote: Baarogue wrote: Most of the load for hazardous terrain appears to be in the text of the specific hazardous terrain effects. The ones I skimmed through appeared to share some form of "creatures passing through the terrain take X damage for each square they enter."
Unless I'm overlooking a rule that contradicts me here, I would apply that to mean if a larger-than-medium creature entered more than one square of such terrain during a single space of movement, they would take the sum of however many squares they entered worth of damage. And even when they begin exiting the hazardous terrain, they would still take damage for squares their trailing body spaces have to "enter"
I would total the damage of all squares entered before applying IWR, not treat them as separate instances
Edit: so to answer your specific examples; 1. I would give them two squares worth of damage as one, not two instances for the first space of movement, 2. Four squares worth of damage as one instance for entering fully, and 3. One square of damage for their trailing space that had to "enter" an affected square
It's not as straightforward unfortunately.
While RAW initially would make the damage per square, the subsequent Large PC rules seem to flip that rule.
Quote: When moving through an area that is only 5 feet wide, a Large PC can move through the space but treats each square as difficult terrain. Moving through a narrower space that does not obstruct Small creatures requires Large PCs to Squeeze. This is typically relevant only in encounter mode; when shopping in town, a centaur can typically enter a building intended for Medium-sized creatures even if it takes them a little more time to duck through the doorway. When a Large PC moves through hazardous terrain or a similar obstacle that causes damage based on the number of squares the PC moves through, they take damage only once for each 5 feet of movement—a minotaur shouldn't take four times as much damage for crossing a burning field as ... Yeah, that would be the rule I overlooked. I thought I'd read something like that somewhere, and I checked everything I could find on AoN under a search for "hazardous terrain", but didn't find it so decided I'd imagined it or conflated it with other movement rules. Thanks
Thank you for the answers guys ! The 'damage per 5 ft' rules makes sense, and yeah it avoids something getting grown or shrunk and suddenly having greatly different damage when usually you see just a small penalty to AC.
Finoan wrote: Since size doesn't automatically give more (or less) HP, then movement through hazardous and damaging terrain shouldn't automatically deal more (or less) damage. Well "per 5 feet of movement" is still going to do more damage to a large creature, but probably only a trivial amount more. A large creature will have 1 more "5 feet of movement" in any given move where part of them is in the terrain because the 'back' of their token is not the same square as the 'front' of it. So whatever the increment of damage is per 5' of movement, they'll always get one more. But only one more, no matter how big the hazardous terrain area.
They also would have harder times to avoid hazardous terrain completely: if there's a way only for a medium creature they will step in it.
And I suppose even one square of hazardous terrain will still cause normal damage.
Easl wrote: Finoan wrote: Since size doesn't automatically give more (or less) HP, then movement through hazardous and damaging terrain shouldn't automatically deal more (or less) damage. Well "per 5 feet of movement" is still going to do more damage to a large creature, but probably only a trivial amount more. A large creature will have 1 more "5 feet of movement" in any given move where part of them is in the terrain because the 'back' of their token is not the same square as the 'front' of it. So whatever the increment of damage is per 5' of movement, they'll always get one more. But only one more, no matter how big the hazardous terrain area.
Only in an open field.
If they have to go around a corner, one square of hazardous terrain that hits a S/M creature once might hit a L creature thrice. And that's if there's space, as per Errenor's (re-)observation that there might be fewer or even no safe spaces for Large creatures. You could drop a 10'x10' blotch of hazardous terrain in the middle of a 20'x20' room (or larger if the other spaces are simply occupied) and a Large creature will get hurt every round while the smaller ones step to the edges. Similarly with corridors, where you might make a stripe down the middle, like a Wall of Fire. As per 3.X/PF1, I might let the creature take fewer squares (I'd say Squeeze if that weren't its own thing), but that'd come with severe penalties (-4 I believe then, so -2 in PF2; and 1/2 speed).
Castilliano wrote: I might let the creature take fewer squares (I'd say Squeeze if that weren't its own thing), but that'd come with severe penalties (-4 I believe then, so -2 in PF2; and 1/2 speed). Minus to what?
Also as I maybe remember there was something about creatures being able to go through narrow spaces (not nearly narrow enough to have to squeeze though) like Large and 5 ft ways and being off-guard. Which is exactly -2 to AC. And it becomes difficult terrain too - so basically 1/2 speed.
That is unless it's some homerule, not sure.
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