Tornado Evocation

[sparxmith]

Last night I had the opportunity to DM with a new group. I had been playing as a character for about 3 months, and had DM'ed with other groups previously.

None of the players had yet played a 3.x campaign above 10th level, and I looked forward to giving them the opportunity.


Well, as is to be expected when you have 4 former DM's at a table, there were some differences between exact operation of rules. The one that is most troubling to the in-house rules lawyer is the following. It's a spell from the Book of All spells, a third party D&D product. The spell in question is Tornado Evocation. I unfortunately do not own the book of all spells, so I'll just quote what the player wrote to me in an email:

In regard to the spell Tornado Evocation, it is no ordinary tornado, I have control over the tornado, I can have it change direction, place the spells just like any other spells, and determine the size of the effect at the beginning of the spell. the spell says the area of effect is 50 ft / level not more. if you are out of the area of effect, you would not be harmed by the spell just like any other spell. the suck zone is already configured into the area of effect, thus why there is not other specifics written about the suck zone in the narrative of the spell. so no one outside of the effect would be effected by the spell. the tornado in the text moves in a straight line; the caster can change its direction up 45 degrees once per minute. all tornado's do not all touch the ground, there can be severe circular wind in the air, that's why the text of the spell gives two different movements for being on ground and air. by the way, I would not have time to cast that spell anyway, it takes 1 minute to cast. also I can flatten Myth Dannor with this spell and send the building structures and creatures 1 mile away leaving all the openings to underground layers and making the travel to the opening relatively save. something to think about.

The situation arose that the player summoned the tornado 30 FEET above the party to take out a flying devil. I ruled that the entire party would be sucked into the vortex, because 30ft from a force of nature is too close. It just seemed logical to me. He obviously disagreed.

Was I wrong? Am I misunderstanding the spell? I know the DM is always right, but if I'm blatantly misinterpreting the spell, I'd like to apologize.Any input would be appreciated.

Sparxmith

 

[rushlight]

The situation arose that the player summoned the tornado 30 FEET above the party to take out a flying devil. I ruled that the entire party would be sucked into the vortex, because 30ft from a force of nature is too close. It just seemed logical to me. He obviously disagreed.

Reason #1087 to not allow just any product with a d20 logo in your game.

"My magic tornado just hurts bad guys! <snicker>"

As a rule, I do not allow any product that I do not own, or I have not read thoroughly. Not all d20 products are compatable with every game...

 

[Piratecat]

Your ruling was absolutely logical. I'd have done the same.

 

[IceBear]

BTW - I liked how that player basically threatend you with that spell at the end. Nice....NOT!

That said I can kinda see his point about the area of effect. If it were on the ground and the PCs were 5ft away would they or wouldn't they be sucked in as well? As I know next to nothing about real tornados, I'd have to go with AoE only, but it is a poorly thought out spell on the behalf of the designers if they didn't clearly state the effects were totally contained within the AoE or describe the secondary effects of the spell outside the AoE (small objects whipping around the outside of the funnel, etc).

 

[Marimmar]

He might be right about his interpretation of the spell -- according to what he said in his post. I don't think that any good assessment is possible unless we can see the complete spell description.

Nevertheless threatening the DM with destroying his campaign with some Überspell (combination) is never wise. The last mages IMC with delusions of grandeur met horrible fates -- Impr. Ivisibility-Fly-Fireball isn't an unbeatable strategy, casting some possibly broken Tornado spell shouldn't be either.

~Marimmar

 

[Crothian]

smack this guy down with soemthing not in any book next session. you don't threaten the DM's campaign world, that's not right.

I'd have disollowed the spell at the time since I was not familiar with personall, but I liked your action better.