D&D General "that you can see", "line of sight", glass, mirrors, ~clairvoyance, blindsight, and anything else.

[Oofta]

Yeah .. but, from your second post:



According to this, "complete concealment" provides "total cover". A sufficiently leafy branch can easily provide complete concealment.

I really think "concealment", "cover", and "obstacle" are too slippery of terms to be useful in this discussion.

TomB

Completely concealed by an obstacle is not the same as being concealed by darkness. Darkness does not impede you in any way. Other than the fact that you might stub your toe on the chair your wife moved before she went to bed for some reason of course.

 

[tomBitonti]

Completely concealed by an obstacle is not the same as being concealed by darkness. Darkness does not impede you in any way. Other than the fact that you might stub your toe on the chair your wife moved before she went to bed for some reason of course.

Ah, ok.

But then:

Total Cover
A target with total cover can't be targeted directly by an attack or a spell, although some spells can reach such a target by including it in an area of effect. A target has total cover if the line of effect is blocked by an impenetrable obstacle.

Bringing concealment into the discussion just seems to confuse the discussion. A wall of force is an obstacle which does not provide concealment and which provides total cover to physical attacks.

Then, a better question seems to be: What types of obstacles are barriers to magical effects?

TomB

 

[Oofta]

Ah, ok.

But then:



Bringing concealment into the discussion just seems to confuse the discussion. A wall of force is an obstacle which does not provide concealment and which provides total cover to physical attacks.

Then, a better question seems to be: What types of obstacles are barriers to magical effects?

TomB

Any obstacle that provides total cover is a barrier to magical effects. The rules for casting a spell with range are really no different than the rules for a ranged weapon attack.

The vast majority of times that also means you can't see the target, but that doesn't negate the rest of the text. You have to have a clear path to the target.

I think people just read too much into that one word. The PHB is not a legal document, it's not computer code. The word "concealed" may have been a poor choice, but read in context the meaning is clear.

 

[Starfox]

It seems the real issue is whether one can construct a path from the caster to the target using one or another senses which locate things in space. That is, how the target is perceived matters less than what you do with the sense data which is received in regards the target.

Completely agree here, and i think the game agrees as well. A creature with blindsight can satisfy the sight requirement for spells without vision. A creature with tremorsense cannot, as it is noted in the description of temorsense that it doesn't. That doesn't prevent a specific creature to have tremorsense that works as sight, but that would have to be explicitly said in the stat block.

For a blind PC, I would rule that touch counts as seeing, and depending on how they were blinded and for how long, I might give them a short-range sound/smell oriented blindsight.

 

[tomBitonti]

Any obstacle that provides total cover is a barrier to magical effects. The rules for casting a spell with range are really no different than the rules for a ranged weapon attack.

The vast majority of times that also means you can't see the target, but that doesn't negate the rest of the text. You have to have a clear path to the target.

I think people just read too much into that one word. The PHB is not a legal document, it's not computer code. The word "concealed" may have been a poor choice, but read in context the meaning is clear.

Except, there are many exceptions: Should a sunbeam type spell work through glass (I'd say yes). Should a sound based effect work through a closed wooden door? (I'd say it depends on whether the sound reaches through the obstacle). Many damaging effects which can overcome the hardness and hit points of a barrier continue through the barrier, diminished.

Again, "cover" seems to be less important than the existence of a barrier or obstacle of some sort, and on the interaction of that barrier with the actual spell effect. Why add a layer of indirect meaning ("cover") when a more direct meaning ("obstacle") more directly fits the question?

What cover seems to do is deny information about either the existence of a target, or of the precise location of a target. That prevents some spells from working regardless of the existence of a real obstacle: The spell simply fails to "lock on" to the target in the first place, regardless of whether the spell effect could reach the target.

TomB

TomB

 

[Oofta]

Except, there are many exceptions: Should a sunbeam type spell work through glass (I'd say yes). Should a sound based effect work through a closed wooden door? (I'd say it depends on whether the sound reaches through the obstacle). Many damaging effects which can overcome the hardness and hit points of a barrier continue through the barrier, diminished.

Again, "cover" seems to be less important than the existence of a barrier or obstacle of some sort, and on the interaction of that barrier with the actual spell effect. Why add a layer of indirect meaning ("cover") when a more direct meaning ("obstacle") more directly fits the question?

What cover seems to do is deny information about either the existence of a target, or of the precise location of a target. That prevents some spells from working regardless of the existence of a real obstacle: The spell simply fails to "lock on" to the target in the first place, regardless of whether the spell effect could reach the target.

TomB

TomB

The spells do not work if you are following the rules. The wording on cover is clear, if you don't have a clear line of effect to the target it's not a valid target. It's pretty much been that way for a few decades now.

Feel free to make up house rules that make sense to you.

 

[tomBitonti]

The spells do not work if you are following the rules. The wording on cover is clear, if you don't have a clear line of effect to the target it's not a valid target. It's pretty much been that way for a few decades now.

Feel free to make up house rules that make sense to you.

Is Roll20 accurate? A perusal of a few common spells seems to indicate that the requirement that the target be seen will be explicitly stated when it applies. I'm in doubt of the general PHB text based on this perusal.

Sunbeam and Lightning Bolt don't seem to need the targets to be seen. Magic Missile and Hold Person explicitly do, and don't seem to care about cover, even total cover, as long as the target can be seen and is in range.. Sunbeam and Lightning Bolt presumably are affected by total cover.

Sunbeam
Target: Each creature in a 5-foot-wide, 60-foot-long line

Lightning Bolt
Target: Self (100-foot line)

Magic Missile
Target: A creature of your choice that you can see within range

Hold Person
Target: A humanoid that you can see within range

TomB

 

[Oofta]

Is Roll20 accurate? A perusal of a few common spells seems to indicate that the requirement that the target be seen will be explicitly stated when it applies. I'm in doubt of the general PHB text based on this perusal.

Sunbeam and Lightning Bolt don't seem to need the targets to be seen. Magic Missile and Hold Person explicitly do, and don't seem to care about cover, even total cover, as long as the target can be seen and is in range.. Sunbeam and Lightning Bolt presumably are affected by total cover.









TomB

I play Solarus, a D&D game that implements the rules from the open core rules. For some reason in the game lightning bolts go straight through solid walls. I assume it's a coding glitch, something they didn't take into account or that for some reason it eas too difficult to implement.

Meanwhile when I'm running the game at home, I follow the rules of the game. Spells have to have a clear line of effect, nothing can completely obstruct the path.

Run it however you want, but no one has ever been able to point out wording that states that spell ranges are any different from ranged attacks with weapons.

 

[Lanefan]

But a magic missile only targets creatures and can't affect an inanimate object.

Unrelated to the main topic, this rule has never made any sense to me.

 

[Oofta]

Unrelated to the main topic, this rule has never made any sense to me.

I view it as disrupting whatever spirit or life force animates a creature. Kind of like a souped-up taser that can kill you. But ... yeah. It's always been little bits of "boom" to me so it should be able to blow stuff up.