Are there any clear clarification for burst and blast in 3d?

[spayne]

This was addressed in the May 2010 podcast at 15:00.

They say that bursts and blasts are cube shaped.

They explain that for combat purposes, a medium character's space is a 5 foot cube, no matter what their actual height is. Space is not the same as height. A creature does not need to fill its whole space or fit into its whole space. It has been abstracted to simplify combat.

 

[Legildur]

...They say that bursts and blasts are cube shaped.

So a 3x3 close blast is in fact 3x3x3 cube?

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

So a 3x3 close blast is in fact 3x3x3 cube?

That is the commonly accepted solution, yes. I think it has also been mentioned now and then in other places too, but never officially. It is practically an unofficial quoted rule over on the WotC 4e Q&A forum.

Reading through the RC last night I do note that it makes slight mention of cubes, but there are still no printed rules for this that spell out all the possible ramifications of 3d AoEs. RC clearly considers squares to be 3d and mentions they are 'cubes', but it is still arguable at least with blasts as to what the official rule actually is. Still, nobody is going to argue with a DM that uses the cube ruling. I'm sure it would fly in organized play and might even be considered the preferred or obligatory way to handle it.

Wizards in particular do gain a bit by this. Targeting AoEs over the heads of the party to attack large+ targets is the most obvious and useful strategy. Flying creatures generally are going to be spread out enough that it mostly won't make much difference.

 

[DracoSuave]

Reading through the RC last night I do note that it makes slight mention of cubes, but there are still no printed rules for this that spell out all the possible ramifications of 3d AoEs. RC clearly considers squares to be 3d and mentions they are 'cubes', but it is still arguable at least with blasts as to what the official rule actually is. .

The only mentions of vertical distance I've found are in 'Movement in Three Dimensions' and where it mentions Flying and Aquatic movement.

Again, nothing is mentioned involving how Area or Close attacks work in the third dimension, nor even a mention of 'cubes'.

All it mentions is that you use a die for elevation for creatures of differening elevation.

It's pretty much exactly what the DMG says.


Yeah, I gots me some RC now.

 

[eamon]

Actually, even in the PHB1 this was fairly unambiguous, albeit not exactly clear.

A burst has a particular size, which determines which targets are included. In chapter 4, it says: "A close burst power allows you to target creatures or objects within the indicated number of squares from you in all directions." This also refers to p. 272, which essentially repeats it. Only the example is in 2d, which is reasonable given that that's the normal scenario.

So, for bursts at least, it's pretty clear - what matters is distance from origin square, and that can be counted as usual - i.e. vertical distance counts too.

Blasts are a little more confusingly formulated simply since there is hardly any formulation at all beyond the 2d examples. What is said is that it's an area a specified number of squares on a side; that is most reasonable the specified number of squares on all sides - vertically included, particularly given the way bursts work.

So, you could make the argument that bursts& blasts are undefined, but you'd be hard pressed to make the argument that they're actually flat - it certainly never says that, and for bursts it's particularly hard to argue that they shouldn't be cubes.

So, if you're arguing as a form of personal enlightenment, then there's ample scope for elaboration here. Practically, however, given the text and trying to be consistent pretty much means you need to be using cubes; WotC's staff generally confirms that (although early on they gave a few confusing answers).