Line Spells / Lightning Bolt

Dax Doomslayer · Jan 30, 2019

Hi Folks,
Quick question. Can a lightning bolt cast effectively act as 10' wide on a square grid? Looking at Xanthar's (p. 87 Diagram 2.6), it essentially looks like this is a way to adjudicate it. Essentially, someone casting a lightning bolt down the grid line so it goes half into both adjoining squares. How do you normally judge this? Thanks.

ad_hoc · Jan 30, 2019

Xanathar's actually shows the opposite.

Look at the 5' diagram.

FrogReaver · Jan 30, 2019

I play more totm. In totm if 2 players are adjacent and you cast lightning bolt it can hit both. As such I’d rule that it’s possible for in grid based play as well.

The Crimson Binome · Jan 30, 2019

Generally speaking, if you cast it right down the line, it should effectively hit 10' wide along its entire length. Depending on the situation, I might give one or both creatures Advantage on the saving throw, since it only clips half of them. If you fire it at any angle other than along the grid, there are going to be places where it covers some squares entirely and other squares by less than half, so be prepared for ad-hoc adjudication.

If you only care about hitting two enemies that are next to each other, but far from you, then you should almost always be able to fire it in such a way that both will be hit.

Dax Doomslayer · Jan 30, 2019

ad_hoc said:
Xanathar's actually shows the opposite.

Look at the 5' diagram.

Actually, if you look at the diagram (the two below the one you are looking at) which are the bottom two diagrams, it shows 10'....

TaranTheWanderer · Jan 31, 2019

For a 10 foot line, You pick two 5 foot squares in front of you. The lightning bolt follows the path along those two lines.

000000000000000000000000000 (1)
X 000000000000000000000000000 (2)
000000000000000000000000000 (3)

Let's say 'X' is the character and '0' are the grid squares. 1, 2 and 3 are your 3 options for the line of the lightning bolt. You have to choose the line of squares (2) directly in front of you. You then get to choose one of the lines adjacent to (2); either Line (1) or (3).

So, if the dash is the path of the lightning bolt, it can look like this:

00 ------------------------------------- (1)
X ------------------------------------- (2)
000000000000000000000000000000 (3)

or this:

000000000000000000000000000000 (1)
X--------------------------------------- (2)
0- -------------------------------------- (3)

Edit: the formating is a bit messed up, so hopefully, you get the idea

If you look closely at the diagram in Xanthar's, you can see the player chose the line in front of and to the right of the mini.

ad_hoc · Jan 31, 2019

Dax Doomslayer said:
Actually, if you look at the diagram (the two below the one you are looking at) which are the bottom two diagrams, it shows 10'....

Why are you assuming that is for a line with a 5' width?

What is the top diagram for then? A line with a 2.5' width?

aco175 · Jan 31, 2019

I'd be inclined to not allow it. I can see players arguing that creatures in the 5ft space do not actually take up the whole square and the bolt should not target the whole 10ft.

TaranTheWanderer · Jan 31, 2019

Wait. Have I misunderstood the question?

Are you saying you want a lightning bolt to target the line down the middle of a 2 adjacent grids? I wouldn't allow that. Choose your line and the bolt goes along fully inside the squares. The diagram in Xanathar's does not show the lightning bolt going down the line. It shows two rows of dice and each die is fully contained inside a square.

-The first two images in diagram 2.6 are of a 5 foot wide 'line effect' on a straight grid angle and then on a diagonal angle.
-The second two images in diagram 2.6 are of a 10 foot wide 'line effect' on a straight grid angle and on a diagonal angle.

It is not showing you 4 ways to adjudicate a 5 foot wide line effect.

Tokens can't finish their movement between squares. If they don't have enough movement to make it to the next square (like if their movement was impeded by terrain and they had 2.5 feet left), they have to stop in the closest square, not half-way between. Spells work the same way.

I thought you were asking how to adjudicate a 10 foot line.

Dax Doomslayer · Jan 31, 2019

[MENTION=6748898]ad_hoc[/MENTION], I was not assuming anything - this is why I asked the question. However, the previous tokens for the cone above it is showing instances of the same area effect which threw me off. However, that's a good point that it's probably a 10' for the bottom and a 5' wide for the one above it in that diagram. I appreciate the insight.
[MENTION=15882]TaranTheWanderer[/MENTION] - thanks for this. I was actually asking both and your diagram definitely helped clarify this to me!

I appreciate everyone's response to this.