Diagonal area of spells

balam_br · Apr 11, 2018

Hello guys... one of my powergame players have a strange idea... he is using cube effect spells in a diagonal pattern... like a diamond.
getting a bad guy that is between two players with the point of the diamond...

Theres nothing in the rules against it... and nothing favoring this...

It feels to me a little cheese... (but i already have some bias against this player)

What do you guys think about this... would you be okay with it??

Thanks in advance

StormbringerAUS · Apr 11, 2018

I certainly don't like this sort of power gaming. I don't know about the diagonal for a a cube effect better rule lawyers than me will know.

A fire ball that hits one person(creature) but doesn't hit the one hitting him with a sword seems wrong if legal.

But as for the spirit and feel, in my game for any area of effect spell where the player is trying to have it miss party members by inches or hit an exacting spot - I would get the player to make some sort of check - insight or even a too hit role - a failed check means if misses in a random direction (1d8) by a few feet - might be 1d4 or more depending on the situation. We tend to use a battle map in these situations.

Tony Vargas · Apr 11, 2018

balam_br said:
Hello guys... one of my powergame players have a strange idea... he is using cube effect spells in a diagonal pattern... like a diamond.
getting a bad guy that is between two players with the point of the diamond...

Theres nothing in the rules against it...

5e doesn't assume a grid, if a spell is a cube so many ft on a side, that's what it is. If there's no requirement to the contrary, it can be placed in whatever orientation makes sense.

That said, you could certainly rule that placing an effect to hit one of 3 creatures fighting in melee either catches all of them or risks catching none, or anything in between.

Back in the day I might have given the two allies a bonus to the save, and made it save:neg for all three, since there's ample opportunity to jump clear of the area entitely.

Harzel · Apr 11, 2018

Since the orientation of any reference grid is itself (probably) completely arbitrary, to me it seems unreasonable to restrict the orientation of a cube AoE. That said, I'm inclined to agree with those saying that extreme precision in placing any AoE can reasonably be subject to some kind of ability check.

The Crimson Binome · Apr 11, 2018

The grid is an illusion. It doesn't correspond to anything within the game world.

The spell templates are guidelines. They are tools, to help you if you are bad at visualizing effects in an imaginary 3D space.

If a problem can be solved by re-orienting the reference frame, then it's not a problem.

It's also possible that there might be some shenanigans going on. What spell were they trying to use?

Li Shenron · Apr 11, 2018

We don't use a grid for adjudicating combat, so this idea would be perfectly normal for us.

FrogReaver · Apr 11, 2018

balam_br said:
Hello guys... one of my powergame players have a strange idea... he is using cube effect spells in a diagonal pattern... like a diamond.
getting a bad guy that is between two players with the point of the diamond...

Theres nothing in the rules against it... and nothing favoring this...

It feels to me a little cheese... (but i already have some bias against this player)

What do you guys think about this... would you be okay with it??

Thanks in advance

A smart tactical choice is not power gaming. In fact what happened could almost be a movie moment - "The PC has been casting the spell a certain way for his whole career thus far, the bad guy tells him hah you can't get me with that now and the player says wanna bet!"

Anyways, the point is that most uses of abilities are what you make of them. If you assume the worst then you'll see the worst, if you don't then things tend to go a lot smoother.

Shiroiken · Apr 11, 2018

There are two schools of thought for combat: narrative and tactical. If you're already using a grid, then you've chosen to use the tactical model. In this case, you could decide to allow more flexibility than the RAW allows, since the grid is really an arbitrary tool used for convenience. Since you are deviating from the standard methods, it is advised that you make adjustments to the standard rules. The most common method, as noted by other commenters is to require a check to place it precisely. Another option would be to grant advantage on the saving throw, since the character is not completely within the cube. Either method would work fine, so long as you remain consistent.

Li Shenron · Apr 11, 2018

Shiroiken said:
There are two schools of thought for combat: narrative and tactical. If you're already using a grid, then you've chosen to use the tactical model. In this case, you could decide to allow more flexibility than the RAW allows, since the grid is really an arbitrary tool used for convenience. Since you are deviating from the standard methods, it is advised that you make adjustments to the standard rules.

Do we actually have a RAW to imply that the grid is fixed? I don't use a grid so I am not sure... it just occurred to me that a fixed grid is obviously convenient, but perhaps not strictly required by the RAW, although the books normally refer to moving diagonally on a grid (which kind of implies that the grid must be fixed indeed).

Shiroiken said:
The most common method, as noted by other commenters is to require a check to place it precisely. Another option would be to grant advantage on the saving throw, since the character is not completely within the cube. Either method would work fine, so long as you remain consistent.

A check is better than advantage on ST, IMHO, because the latter only works if there actually is a ST, and advantage sometimes implies something more than just a better chance.

However, my general opinion is that this situation is a corner case, both because very few offensive spells use a cube area (most cubes are creation spells or illusions) and because orienting the cube would be useful only in some occasions... so I'd very much prefer not to add more rules here, just allow/disallow without any extra check.

jasper · Apr 11, 2018

Just cut out a spell template and have the caster lay on the grid. I forget if you get advantage if only part of the square you on is partially covered. Or let him have his way. And have the monsters copy his tactic.

Diagonal area of spells

balam_br

Explorer

StormbringerAUS

Explorer

Tony Vargas

Legend

Harzel

Adventurer

The Crimson Binome

Hero

Li Shenron

Legend

FrogReaver

As long as i get to be the frog

Shiroiken

Legend

Li Shenron

Legend

jasper

Rotten DM

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