Sculpted Fireball

A player in a game I was in tried this, and the DM allowed it. I didn't see anything in the Complete Arcane that officially forbade this interpretation, but it still seems wrong.

He cast fireball using the four 10' cubes option. He placed each of those four cubes in different places. While each was within line of sight, they all pretty far apart from one another (each was about 60' from the other three).

It seemed to me that the Sculpt Spell feat should allow the shape of the area of effect to change, but not to allow the spell's area to be so dramatically altered.

Anyone have any official clarification on this?

Dave

Been a while since I read the sculpted feat but I thought it allowed the cubes only if the connected or touched. so you could do a line of 4, 10 cubes that touched at the corner (like 4 adjacent diamond shapes) but you couldn't actuallt seperate them. My emory may be faulty though.

later

You can modify any area of effect spell into a different area shape. Choices for a new shape are :cylinder (10'r, 30'h), Cone (40'l, 40'w), 4 10' cubes, a ball (20'r), or a 120-foot line. The sculpted spell works normally in all respects except for its shape. For example, a lightning bolt whose are ais changed to a ball deals the same amount of damage, but affects a 20-foot-radius spread.

Click to expand...

Doesn't say anything about where the cubes need to be. I would rule they would need to be touching.

cmanos said:

Doesn't say anything about where the cubes need to be. I would rule they would need to be touching.

Click to expand...

Yep, that's what I noticed, and that's how I would have ruled. But, the other DM basically ruled that since it doesn't say the cubes have to touch, then they don't have to touch.

By the way, this made for a really effective use of the fireball. The player in question took out a whole bunch of low-level guys who, because of their tactical placement on the battle field, would have been a real problem in the next round.

Dave

cmanos said:

Doesn't say anything about where the cubes need to be. I would rule they would need to be touching.

Click to expand...

Given the areas given for the following (all in cubic feet):

Cylinder: 9424
Cone: 16755
Sphere: 33510
Line: 3000 (since a square is 5' x 5' x 5', I used 5' x 5' x 120')
Cubes: 4000

It seems like the cubes are already suffering from small attack area. Without being separated, it would make them pretty useless.

To put it another way, there is not configuration of four contiguous 10' cubes that can not be 80-90% covered by a 20' radius sphere.

Take a look at the maximum linear dimensions of the same shapes (in feet):

Cylinder: 30
Cone: 56
Sphere: 40
Line: 120
Cube: 40

The onlt one that is significantly different than the others (the line) also has a much smaller area coverage. So it is safe to assume that the designers feel that a large area should be compensated for by a smaller maximum dimension. As the Cubes are a small area, one would think they intended it to be used over a large maximum dimension, which contiguous blocks would not permit.

In short, I'm pretty sure they intended for them to be separated.

reanjr said:

Line: 3000 (since a square is 5' x 5' x 5', I used 5' x 5' x 120')

Click to expand...

IIRC, line effects are place on the lines between squares, and effect the squares that touch the line. This would effectively double the volume of the line shape.

Even if that is the case, it is still a small area compared to the others.

reanjr said:

It seems like the cubes are already suffering from small attack area. Without being separated, it would make them pretty useless.

Click to expand...

You've got to be kidding I have used Sculpt Spell more often than any other metamagic feat, and the cubic shape more than any other of the allowed shapes.

I'm not sure if we used the correct ruling, but we always required the cubes to be a single volume, i.e. touching each other with a face (not a point or line).

Still the cubic version is the best one (or more properly, the only one) to be able to cast the spell when your allies are in melee with the enemies. The other shapes are good only when the enemies are still far away enough that you can position the area without hurting your allies; Line and Cone are worse because they have to start from you, while Sphere and Cylinder can be far away. Between Line and Cone, the first is definitely the worst area-wise, but the second isn't easy to use unless you're on the front. Sphere definitely better than Cylinder which has a usefulness only in very peculiar cover scenarios.

I think the 3D area differentce isn't significant unless you have lots of aerial combat (IMXP that's a minority of situations), otherwise it's better to count the 2D flat covered area on the map. It's however good that you point out the max distance between affected creatures, and here the cubes get the shaft. But actually their SMALL AREA is exactly what makes them so frequently useful: it's the only shape you can use with ease in enclosed spaces

I would base the placement of the cubes on the ruling for Fire Storm. This spell gives you many cubes but the spell has the (S) in the area. So I would require the same for sculpt spell.

Vraister

Personally I've found sculpt spell to be one of the few metamagic feats actually worth taking. You saced a feat, you saced a higher level spell, not getting any bonus to dc- I say let it do what the feat says it can do....ie touching cubes not required.