Shatter

taliesin15 · May 27, 2007

The campaign I run is using 3.0 rules--the party will likely encounter a magical trap they probably won't be able to find or disable triggering the Shatter spell. The PHB says any nonmagical item made of crystal, porcelain, ceramic, glass and the like gets shattered into a thousand pieces--first of all do folks think this applies to potions? I can see both sides of that argument. Also, I think I foresee an argument where the 2 party members carrying Heward's Haversack or Bag of Holding might have potions or other objects potentially Shatterable stashed--would these items be affected at all given that they are in a kind of extra-dimensional space? Finally, its not really clear what if any kind of saving throw would apply. Despite the text of the spell, I'm considering giving each character a chance at a Reflex save to jump out of the way of the sonic blast by the spell. Fort and Will (as cited in the spell-text) don't make sense to me.

Dheran · May 27, 2007

Potion bottles should be broken, just like any other nonmagical glass objects. But an extradimensional space should protect things.

A Reflex saving throw versus a sonic blast doesn't make sense. Sound travels at about 1100 feet per second. Human reflexes and even souped-up Monks with the Run feat don't come close to that.

AuraSeer · May 28, 2007

The save for objects is Will negates. Attended or carried nonmagical objects, like a nonmagical potion vial, use the saving throw of the carrying person.

Note that if the potion bottles are inside any other closed container, like a backpack or pouch, they won't be affected. Shatter is a spread, which means it's blocked by any barrier that blocks line of effect.

In any case the trap will affect only objects made of glass or crystalline materials. In my gameworld, nearly all potion vials are made of metal. Mainly this is so they don't smash the first time you slip and fall, but it also incidentally makes them immune to the area version of shatter.

AuraSeer · May 28, 2007

Dheran said:
A Reflex saving throw versus a sonic blast doesn't make sense. Sound travels at about 1100 feet per second.

It only doesn't make sense to you because you're trying to use real world physics. That just doesn't apply in D&D. This is a world where the dead walk, giant humans stand upright, and flying lizards can breathe fire and acid, so the rules are clearly different than the ones of our world.

If the altered physics hurts your suspension of disbelief, consider this. A real-world lightning bolt, on its way from cloud to earth, travels on the order of 100,000 miles per hour. Comparatively, sound crawls along at less than 1% of that speed. So if a Reflex save is fast enough to dodge a lightning bolt spell, it should have no trouble dodging some poky little sound wave.

taliesin15 · May 28, 2007

Interesting thoughts on this thread, I appreciate the feedback. I'm thinking the Reflex save does seem a bit barmy, and yet I don't know about a Will save for an inanimate object--Fortitude is what I'll use, but in any case, it doesn't matter since the Saving Throws are all +2 +one-half the caster level.

Also I'm glad nobody seems to think the potion containers themselves are magical in any way. FWIW, it seems to me that ordinary backpacks and the like would not stop soundwaves, but Bags of Holding and the like would stop the Shatter spell. However, I'm considering a higher level version of Shatter (Improved or Greater Shatter) which would penetrate things nearby even if on the Ethereal or other plane. Especially given that the trap in question has been laid by some high-level Drow NPCs.

Shatter

taliesin15

First Post

Dheran

First Post

AuraSeer

Prismatic Programmer

AuraSeer

Prismatic Programmer

taliesin15

First Post

Similar Threads

AD6_gamerati_skyscraper

Recent & Upcoming Releases