Wall of Force question

Blindsense (Ex): Using nonvisual senses, such as acute smell or hearing, a creature with blindsense notices things it cannot see. The creature usually does not need to make Spot or Listen checks to pinpoint the location of a creature within range of its blindsense ability, provided that it has line of effect to that creature.
Any opponent the creature cannot see still has total concealment (50% miss chance) against the creature with blindsense, and the creature still has the normal miss chance when attacking foes that have concealment. Visibility still affects the movement of a creature with blindsense. A creature with blindsense is still denied its Dexterity bonus to Armor Class against attacks from creatures it cannot see

The Feat clearly states Creatures, not objects. IMHO, a wall of force is not a creature. Therefore the Dragon could not use Blindsense to discover the wall, and would need a spot check of 40+Hide check (but this is for creatures, according to RAW you can't detect invisible objects with a Spot check). So all in all, the Dragon has no option other than smashing into the Wall of Force. The only way the Dragon has to avoid the Wall of Force is Detect Magic.

Blindsense (Ex): Using nonvisual senses, such as acute smell or hearing, a creature with blindsense notices things it cannot see. The creature usually does not need to make Spot or Listen checks to pinpoint the location of a creature within range of its blindsense ability, provided that it has line of effect to that creature.

It specifies things, not creatures, then goes on to explain detecting creatures.

Blindsense (Ex): Using nonvisual senses, such as acute smell or hearing, a creature with blindsense notices things it cannot see. The creature usually does not need to make Spot or Listen checks to pinpoint the location of a creature within range of its blindsense ability, provided that it has line of effect to that creature.

But it states that the creature uses it's acute smell or hearing to detect the things it cannot see. Can you smell a Wall of Force or hear it. A wall of force by anyother name would smell as sweet? So what sense are you using to detect an invisible wall? Sight, no. Smell, no. Hearing, no. Taste, maybe. Touch, yes (by crashing into it).

Thatwackyned said:

Blindsense (Ex): Using nonvisual senses, such as acute smell or hearing, a creature with blindsense notices things it cannot see. The creature usually does not need to make Spot or Listen checks to pinpoint the location of a creature within range of its blindsense ability, provided that it has line of effect to that creature.

But it states that the creature uses it's acute smell or hearing to detect the things it cannot see. Can you smell a Wall of Force or hear it. A wall of force by anyother name would smell as sweet? So what sense are you using to detect an invisible wall? Sight, no. Smell, no. Hearing, no. Taste, maybe. Touch, yes (by crashing into it).

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Hmmm... Let me see if I can come up with something... Uh... Radar?
All right, I'll have to give you that one.
Though I do find that sometimes a wall of force in the wrong place can really stink.

Abciximab said:

Hmmm... Let me see if I can come up with something... Uh... Radar?
All right, I'll have to give you that one.
Though I do find that sometimes a wall of force in the wrong place can really stink.

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Actually the definition of blindsense references acute smell and hearing as examples of the types of nonvisual senses which make blindsense possible. It doesn't say "only", it says "such as". Bats using echolocation would avoid a wall of force, and I'd rule that dragons flying towards a wall of force in midair would automatically detect it once it was in range of their blindsense, and wouldn't worry about the semantics of how the blindsense worked.

That is, if the dragon was flying towards the area of the wall. What do you think would happen if the wall was edgewise towards the dragon? Could you just slice it right in half?

SolitonMan said:

Actually the definition of blindsense references acute smell and hearing as examples of the types of nonvisual senses which make blindsense possible. It doesn't say "only", it says "such as". Bats using echolocation would avoid a wall of force, and I'd rule that dragons flying towards a wall of force in midair would automatically detect it once it was in range of their blindsense, and wouldn't worry about the semantics of how the blindsense worked.

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So, they're using the sixth sense! I knew it!

That is, if the dragon was flying towards the area of the wall. What do you think would happen if the wall was edgewise towards the dragon? Could you just slice it right in half?

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Interesting question. So the mage readies an action to do this when the dragon moves, what happens?

SolitonMan said:

Bats using echolocation would avoid a wall of force, and I'd rule that dragons flying towards a wall of force in midair would automatically detect it once it was in range of their blindsense, and wouldn't worry about the semantics of how the blindsense worked.

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I agree with you fully that echolocation would work fine. Good call. But Blindsense doesn't give echolocation, and so the Dragon is stuck with the 5 senses. But as a DM, it's your call. I'ld reward the players for coming up with such a good idea, if i was DMing.

Thatwackyned said:

..... The wall must be continuous and unbroken when formed. If its surface is broken by any object or creature, the spell fails.

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What exactly does that mean, though? Apart from the lack of (S) in the spell description, couldn't just looking at this sentence alone imply there's no reason I couldn't make an entirely vertical wall surface---even if one part of the surface is perpendicular to another? Again, this is a bit of a moot point sans (S), but still...

To me, it implies that---from a conceptual standpoint---I've got multiple (in my case, 16, having that caster level) 10x10 "pieces of wall" to place--the only restrictions on them are that they all have to connect to another piece of wall, that they must be vertical (as listed in another part of the spell's description), and that I can't have anything piercing through the area of the wall when it's cast. I can live with that, and at least as I see it, I stuck to that in the original intent of stopping the dragon.

the_orc_within said:

Maybe the dragon should have been allowed a Spot check (DC 40 to spot an invisible inanimate object) to see the wall and avoid? Not sure,

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I can live with that.

billd91 said:

...If he spots it, I'd look at his maneuverability, speed, and figure out if he could turn enough to avoid hitting it or not. Figure he may also have Wingover, which means, that if he spots the wall, it's actually easy to avoid.
Had the dragon missed the spot check, I'd have had him run smack into the wall and take some nominal damage (just a few d6s based on the collision and fall). It wouldn't be much, but it would be enough to get him out of the air for the time being.

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I'd certainly not have a problem with the dragon taking a minor amount of damage akin to fall damage, but see next quote...

frankthedm said:

You placed the wall of force on your own turn I'm guessing? IMHO it will take a readied action while the victim is running to get someone to slam into a barrier they can percieve.

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Therein lies the question as to whether the dragon can spot the wall. If he fails the check, it's a barrier it cannot percieve, and would therefore slam into it.

That said, I was indeed casting the spell on my own turn (specifically, I'd held my action until after the dragon had gone), so I'm cool with him not necessarily crashing into the wall and taking any damage. The intent was therefore to create the wall pretty much directly in front of the dragon, making it difficult to avoid the surface; not necessarily to cause it harm, but to impede it from carrying out its minimum movement to continue to fly based on maneuverability.

frankthedm said:

Dragon has blindsense and thus when it takes its turn, it knows the wall is there......

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I go along with that. Again, knowing the wall is there only really matters if the dragon can avoid it....

frankthedm said:

..... If dragon has the Hover or Wingover feats, it can use one of those. Indeed I suspect dragons were given those insane fly speeds so they can hover as a default tactic.

If the dragon did not have Hover or Wingover then it would have to land at the end of it's turn or fall. If it was really high up it would get a reflex save to stop the fall part way down

Wall of force does not need an anchor.

Wall of force does not give a save because it can't be used to trap someone. If you try using it to have a victim slam into it, how that will work is up to the DM.

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A dragon of Huge size has Poor Maneuverability, and that means a minumum of half movement speed during flight to stay aloft. It has to move in a 45 degree angle to go up or down, and turning a 45 degree angle requires 5 feet of movement. As the wall was to be directly in front of the dragon, it's not inherently the wall that stops the dragon; it's the dragon's maneuverability rating. A beholder of will-o-wisp, the two example creatures for Good and Perfect maneuverability, would simply need to expend more movement to go around the wall, or a Gargoyle with Average manueverability could just turn in place at a loss of 5 or 10 feet of movement, no biggie. Flight feats such as Wingover and Hover could indeed change this, but it was a chance I wanted to take.

To boil it all down: It sounds as though the Dragon would have done one of two things:

(A) Used Hover and/or Wingover, not crashed into the wall because it would have likely detected it, and just had to fly around/over/under it, or....

(B) Cursed its feat list, crashed (I'd say lightly, you might almost say "bumped into" instead) into the wall, counted all the rules dealing with falling 30 feet, and have been brought to the ground, even for a short time (which, in effect, was really all I was shooting for in the first place once I'd determined that I couldn't shape the effect).

Is that more or less correct?

ChromWolf said:

What exactly does that mean, though? Apart from the lack of (S) in the spell description, couldn't just looking at this sentence alone imply there's no reason I couldn't make an entirely vertical wall surface---even if one part of the surface is perpendicular to another? Again, this is a bit of a moot point sans (S), but still...

To me, it implies that---from a conceptual standpoint---I've got multiple (in my case, 16, having that caster level) 10x10 "pieces of wall" to place--the only restrictions on them are that they all have to connect to another piece of wall, that they must be vertical (as listed in another part of the spell's description), and that I can't have anything piercing through the area of the wall when it's cast. I can live with that, and at least as I see it, I stuck to that in the original intent of stopping the dragon.

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The caster can form the wall into a flat, vertical plane whose area is up to one 10- foot square per level. The wall must be continuous and unbroken when formed. If its surface is broken by any object or creature, the spell fails.

In mathematics, a plane is a flat surface. Planes can arise as subspaces of some higher dimensional space, as with the walls of a room, or they may enjoy an independent existence in their own right, as in the setting of Euclidean geometry.

Wingover does require 10 feet of space to perform. If the wall was within 5 ft. only Hover could allow it to not crash into it. And I say crash, minimum movement of 75 ft. and only 5 ft. to move means crash. I would rule that equivalent to falling for 70 ft. (the minimum it needs to stay aloft) or 7d6 and then falling for another 3d6. It would need to be more than 150 ft. high to recover from a fall in mid-air.

So, Frank, someone running past you (and through your threatened area) could not be tripped as an attack of opportunity? You would have to ready an action to do it? Even though their AC is penalized for running?

Ciao,
Dave