Hi everyone! I’d like to clarify how the *Floating Flame* spell (https://2e.aonprd.com/Spells.aspx?ID=1533) works when Sustained:
"When you Sustain this spell, you can levitate the flame up to 10 feet. It then deals damage to each creature whose space it shared at any point during its flight. This uses the same damage and save, and you roll the damage once each time you Sustain" — I want to understand the highlighted part specifically and how it is interpreted when, upon Sustaining, the spell affects a creature that already attempted a save and took damage in a previous round:
1) Does it have to attempt the save again, and does the caster have to roll damage again?
2) Does it have to use the result of the initial save, while the caster rolls damage anew?
I’d appreciate any clarification!
It's as it said in the effect description:
- You create a fire that burns without fuel and moves to your commands.
- The flame deals 3d6 fire damage to each creature in the square in which it appears, with a basic Reflex save.
- When you Sustain this spell, you can levitate the flame up to 10 feet.
- It then deals damage to each creature whose space it shared at any point during its flight.
- This uses the same damage and save, and you roll the damage once each time you Sustain.
- A given creature can take damage from floating flame only once per round.
Reading it in natural English. “This usage” refers to the last way to make the usage of the spell. “It then deals damage to each creature whose space it shared at any point during its flight” can't be the referenced usage because it already refers to the sentence before it, so “When you Sustain this spell, you can levitate the flame up to 10 feet” is the closest usage description to the “This usage” expression.
My understanding is that you roll new damage when you Sustain it as normal and then move it using the rolled damage and use your spell DC (current save), not needing to roll the damage against each target again that is on its way.
It's just an over-explanation about how to rule a sustained spell that affects different targets. Specially this when that doesn't uses a tradition AoE template and it isn't a target spell, instead follow the AoE of the way that you traced to it.
How I am reading it:
"This uses the same damage and save,"
Floating Flame specifies the amount of damage to roll, and that won't change during the entire effect of the spell. Also the save is always a Reflex save and the targets each get to make a new save each time they are affected by the spell.
"and you roll the damage once each time you Sustain"
So each time you Sustain the spell and affect new targets for the round, you roll a new damage value to use for those targets. So you could have a different value rolled for different targets during one round if you use multiple Sustain actions during your turn.
You can still only affect a particular target once per round, so if you affect a target and roll low for the damage value, you can't Sustain again just to try for a higher damage roll against that target.
