Fireballs, Force Orbs, and Ranged Attacks

I originally posted this inside the force orb topic, which addressed whether or not you could target the ground with that ability, but realized I went a bit outside of the topic.

While I think that if Force Orb was meant to be a straight up area of effect spell, it would have been described as having a 'burst 1' inside of the stat block. However, the extra mechanic of it having to hit something and explode is a different story. You know, I'm reminded of in 3E, the fireball spell is described as a tiny red pearl that extends from your finger and blossoms into a fireball upon impact. This means if something invisible is in the way of your target, or as the book says if you hit the sides of the arrow slit you're shooting through, the fireball explodes.

This is essentially how force orb works. If the person your shooting at avoids the red pearl, or the force orb, there's no detonation and it continues on its vector path. So, there's nothing cheesy about aiming the fireball for the ground underneath the kobolds, in order to avoid the miss chance right? Right. Given, force orb isn't described in that same light, but I believe this is due to the cutting down of extraneous information in stat blocks on a whole.

This leads me to a question to someone experienced with house rulings: a wizard is inside of a room with a door that leads into a corridor that extends directly outwards. Then the door is busted down and behind it is an entire hallway full of orcs in a straight path. If the wizard quickly fires a force orb in this straight path, and fails to hit the first orc due to his good reflex defense, what happens? In a cinematic approach, it's easy to imagine the first orc, or maybe even the first few dodging out the way and then hitting the 3rd or nth or whatever. But from a rules standpoint how should that work? Should it work at all? I would think that the orb would continue down the hallway until reaching its peak range with the attack on the first orc applying against all orcs in the hallway. For instance, if the wizard throws a particularly bad Force Orb on an attack of 9, all of the orcs are able to step aside. However, on a roll of 16 only the lieutenants are able to step aside and a minion is struck behind them. I thought about orcs behind the first getting a reflex defense bonus depending on far they were from the initial target the of the spell, but that raises the question of should the initial target receive a bonus if he is more than X squares away from the wizard. Reflex defense based on amount of time received to respond to danger? Does the wizard's attack decide the accuracy and speed of the force orb? Oh lordie lordie. But, if any such house rules exist for spells like these, specifically about targets in a line, should any ranged attack work the same way?

An example I'd find easier to tackle would be the room and the door but the hallway outside is huddled against the outside walls of the room instead of extending outward. So, once the door is bust down, the wizard can see clearly an orc with a wall directly behind him. The Wizard tosses a force orb but narrowly misses, so the force orb hits the wall and detonates, meaning another attack against the same orc's reflex as well as against the reflex of adjacent orcs. What do you guys think?

the simulationist in me loves the idea, the realist in me says it would be a nightmare to implement. (for example what if you are shooting at somebody who is 3 squares forward and one to the right... who is in the "line of fire" if that shot misses? do partial squares count?)

First you have the presumption of the fireball wrong. The red pearl explodes at a predefined point in space UNLESS it hits something first. There is not a standard "to hit" roll with fireball (3.x version) and with 4e fireball it is an attack on all critters in the area. Once again no initial roll is needed.

The Force Orb works differently. It has a primary target of one creature or object. IF it hits then the secondary effect applies. For all reasonable purposes it is impossible to miss the ground. Hitting a specific portion of the ground is not covered under what we have of 4e, just like hitting a specific location on any target is not covered under what we have of 4e.

Now keep in mind we're talking about magic here, if the Force Orb misses its primary target, it vanishes "poof" instantly, it does not travel until it hits something else, likewise it cannot hit anything before its target. It either hits the target and you get all the effects, or it misses the target and you get none of the effects.

It would seem that if the intent was for it to be a de facto AoE, than it would have an AREA descriptor in its target field.

In all of the playtest examples I've seen/read, there are plenty of "real objects" to interact with for targets.

I would say, don't do it.

Crossbow bolt should also works same way. But how do you know if monster has dodged it or the armor/hide/shield has protected him ?

Damage you are dealing with ranged weapons assumes some kind of aiming for vital parts on your side. If original target dodges, there is very low chance that next in line should get full damage - you have aimed for eye of kobold with your ranger super-abilities, but you hit knee of troll behind... hardly same damage.

On top of everything, it will give advantage to ranged weapons. Following the idea, what about part where if you miss with a sword you attack next opponent to your side? One to the left or right depending if you have made a swing from right to left or left to right ?

My suggestion is - forget about it. If arrow misses, then even if it hits the next guy, it will rebound from armor. If you miss with spell, it goes out - it is magic after all, not grenade.

Seems easy to me, though I'm not sure I'd bother with the extra figuring.

All you need to do is treat the attack as a line effect with the range equal to the spell's maximum. Have the player roll a single attack. Compare it to the Reflex defense of each potential target in the line, starting with those closest to the caster. The first one with a Reflex lower than the attack roll gets hit. If the attack is vs AC, compare that same attack roll to the target's AC and resolve normally. If you want, you could say that a primary target takes full damage, but if you hit an accidental target, you only do half damage, or 1/4 damage or whatever.

For the sake of smoothing, it's easier to just say that if you miss your primary target, then the attack hits somewhere else but doesn't inflict any significant damage.

Yeah Cactot, that's a good question. I guess I would say any square where the line of effect passes through opposite sides of a square would have a chance of being hit.

Andur said:

First you have the presumption of the fireball wrong. The red pearl explodes at a predefined point in space UNLESS it hits something first. There is not a standard "to hit" roll with fireball (3.x version) and with 4e fireball it is an attack on all critters in the area. Once again no initial roll is needed.
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Now keep in mind we're talking about magic here, if the Force Orb misses its primary target, it vanishes "poof" instantly, it does not travel until it hits something else, likewise it cannot hit anything before its target. It either hits the target and you get all the effects, or it misses the target and you get none of the effects.

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Well, this is from the 3.5 SRD: If you attempt to send the bead through a narrow passage, such as through an arrow slit, you must “hit” the opening with a ranged touch attack, or else the bead strikes the barrier and detonates prematurely.

So you're right, in that a normal fireball requires no "to hit" roll. But you would agree that the fireball detonates on the barrier and does its full damage to anyone who doesn't save around the arrow slit. So, the fireball doesn't just "poof." Is there some reason we should believe that force orb poofs? Well, I think the reason why there is no "Miss: roll secondary attack...etc" is because if you miss the target, or in other words the force orb doesn't come into contact with anything, the force orb doesn't detonate. In this way it's just like fireball.

As another question, if a wizard is aiming for a door and there's an, invisible gelatinous cube, let's say, in front of it, does the force orb disappear seeing as how it missed its target? Now, I see where your coming from, but honestly it may be taking the gamist ideal a bit too far. I suppose this will just mean different play styles at each of our tables, but I see the orb as a real force that shouldn't be ignored just because it missed its intended target.

Revinor said:

Crossbow bolt should also works same way. But how do you know if monster has dodged it or the armor/hide/shield has protected him ?

Damage you are dealing with ranged weapons assumes some kind of aiming for vital parts on your side. If original target dodges, there is very low chance that next in line should get full damage - you have aimed for eye of kobold with your ranger super-abilities, but you hit knee of troll behind... hardly same damage.

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Good point. Let's leave crossbow bolts and arrows out of it.

Yeah, I agree Generico but I think it's interesting how simulationism and gamism cropped up here, because Andur's way is clean and simple but your line effect, in my view, achieves more realism at the cost of cleanliness.

Because Force Orb has a target and not an area, you cannot shoot it blindly. You cannot say, I shoot into the darkness so that it bursts in 20 feet. It must be aimed at something. You must be able to see it (or perceive it in whatever way the character in question perceives.

That does not mean that one cannot target the ground but it does mean that the cast must be ABLE to target the ground. (according to the standard rules for targeting).

As an example, in 3e, I could aim a fireball down a pit and have it burst in 150 feet. If it does not hit the bottom (or other object) in that time, it will do so. Anything in the area takes damage.

Also in 3e, I cannot do this with magic missile. As a targeted spell, it require that I choose an acceptable target. So, I cannot shoot into the pit in the hopes that a target presents itself.

Carrying this back, if a caster doesn't know whether a viable creature is within an area (perhaps due to invisibility), there is nothing wrong with targeting a rock (or conceivably) the ground. In doing so, the caster forgoes the larger initial damage to gain the chance of dealing less damage to other opponents (including ones that he may not have been aware of). If the target of force orb were limited to creatures (as magic missile is) this strategy would not work.

DC

DreamChaser said:

Because Force Orb has a target and not an area, you cannot shoot it blindly. You cannot say, I shoot into the darkness so that it bursts in 20 feet. It must be aimed at something. You must be able to see it (or perceive it in whatever way the character in question perceives.

That does not mean that one cannot target the ground but it does mean that the cast must be ABLE to target the ground. (according to the standard rules for targeting).

As an example, in 3e, I could aim a fireball down a pit and have it burst in 150 feet. If it does not hit the bottom (or other object) in that time, it will do so. Anything in the area takes damage.

Also in 3e, I cannot do this with magic missile. As a targeted spell, it require that I choose an acceptable target. So, I cannot shoot into the pit in the hopes that a target presents itself.

Carrying this back, if a caster doesn't know whether a viable creature is within an area (perhaps due to invisibility), there is nothing wrong with targeting a rock (or conceivably) the ground. In doing so, the caster forgoes the larger initial damage to gain the chance of dealing less damage to other opponents (including ones that he may not have been aware of). If the target of force orb were limited to creatures (as magic missile is) this strategy would not work.

DC

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Force Orb is one creature or object: The floor might be considered a object. So I think Firce orb can a AoE, but only if you aim it at the floor instead of at the target.

Benefits of targetting: more damage to primary.
Benefits of area only: can't miss hitting adjacents (well you could mess up that secondary attack roll).

Starbuck_II said:

Force Orb is one creature or object: The floor might be considered a object. So I think Firce orb can a AoE, but only if you aim it at the floor instead of at the target.

Benefits of targetting: more damage to primary.
Benefits of area only: can't miss hitting adjacents (well you could mess up that secondary attack roll).

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I think you misunderstand. When you target the floor, it becomes the target. You cannot use the spell otherwise.

My point is that allowing Force Orb to target the floor as an object does NOT make it a burst because a burst would not need to be targeted in the first place.

Again, my example. There is no way (unless the targeting rules in 4e differ substantially from 3e) to cast Force Orb into an area of total darkness within which you cannot make out any objects or creatures (this would include the floor - you may know it is there but you cannot see it to be sure). Fireball (3e version) can be cast into said area because you can define a point in space as the origin of the area (burst).

DC

You could target the Force Orb at the ground. Effectively you give up your primary damage in order to have a better chance at doing secondary damage.