Bending the wall of fire

Hussar said:

Can you be inside a room without entering it?

Look, if it was a straight line, it would work the same. Wall of Fire drops, target is on the burny side and takes 5d8 damage. On the target's turn, it doesn't take damage if it moves through the wall - it's already started its turn in the wall. So, it moves through to the cold side and no problems. The same principle holds here.

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No. It doesn't take damage if it moves through the wall, but it does take damage if it moves out of the wall and then back in again.

Paul Farquhar said:

No. It doesn't take damage if it moves through the wall, but it does take damage if it moves out of the wall and then back in again.

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Not in the same round. You can only take damage from entering the wall the first time in a round - after that you can jump back and forth all you like and not take damage.

IMO if a player tries to squeak some duffus interpretation of the wall being a squiggle and the target can't move out of it or takes damage multiple times in a round, the easiest solution it to just say, "No, doesn't work." and move on.

Saying the WoF can only be a perfectly straight line or a perfect circle removes the opportunity for fun too many times. Let them do it, it's pretty simple RAI.

pukunui said:

Circle or straight line appear to be the only RAW options.

Something that's not entirely clear to me is whether only the length / radius are adjustable, or whether the height and width are as well. That is, does the wall always have to be 20' high and 1' thick, or can it be shorter and thinner than that?

I've been playing it that you can only adjust the length / radius, but I've never been entirely sure if that's the right way to play it.

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RAW says nothing about it being a straight line. Infer all you like, but Crawford seems to generally hold that RAW is confined to things that are stated explicitly. FWIW, Mearls says it can "zig zag".

https://www.sageadvice.eu/2016/09/10/on-grid-wall-of-fre-has-to-be-line-or-can-zigzag/

pukunui said:

It's not clear to me if the "up to" only applies to the length / radius, or if it's meant to apply to the height and width as well. If the latter, it would've been more clear if they'd repeated the "up to". As written, it can be interpreted that the wall must be:

a) 0-60 feet long / 0-20 foot radius
b) 20 feet high
c) 1 foot thick

But I wonder if it should be:

a) 0-60 feet long / 0-20 foot radius
b) 0-20 feet high
c) 0-1 foot thick

Exactly. That's why I wouldn't allow wiggly walls. It's either a straight line or a circle.

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Note that it's a 20 foot diameter, not a 20 foot radius. (Which makes sense, since the circumference of a 20 foot diameter circle is 60 feet, to the extent that you are ok with the value of pi being 3. If you live in Indiana, this should be fine. *)

Paul Farquhar said:

Here is why the wall has to be straight: S-bends could be used to catch a great horde of enemies in the AoE.


>v>v>
^v^v^
^>^>^

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I'm having difficulty understanding the diagram, but I guess I understand the basic point. But how far apart are you envisioning the segments of the wall to be? In any case, assuming you are using a 5 ft. grid, I don't see how the "great horde" can be any bigger than 12 since the wall must pass through each creature's space, which has to use up 5 ft. of length. Also, they have to happen to be arranged in "firewall formation" (i.e., adjacent spaces). But maybe I'm missing something.

Anyway, it seems to me that there is a reasonable compromise between "straight line or circle only" and "anything goes". The restriction could be that the curvature of any bend cannot exceed the curvature of a 20 ft. diameter circle (that is, it cannot bend more sharply than that). If you are still offended by a wall squiggling back and forth, you could further assert that one side of the wall must be solely concave, and the other solely convex. Even taken together, these still allow partial circles, and even bending around the corner of a 10 ft. wide corridor, while excluding any sort of severe snakiness.


* Ok, ok, Hoosiers, it was 3.2, but whatever. Poetic license.

Question for those who think it should do more damage, can I spam the party and especially your pc with this attack?

jasper said:

Question for those who think it should do more damage, can I spam the party and especially your pc with this attack?

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Is there anyone who is arguing that it should do more damage?

TerraDave said:

Circle and straight line only? Can a wall of fire have some bend to it?

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"Rule of cool" vs "over powered unintended use" … I would allow it as long as it doesn't seem overpowered for a 4th level spell. The second it seems like players are abusing it, I would stop it.. UNLESS it was dich effort to prevent a total party kill. Then I would explain in desperation they were able to force a little more out of the spell just this once and if it was use the same way again it would fail. Having read the spell I am not sure its forbidden but I defiantly see the abuse potential as keeping it a perfect circle or striate line limits with players can use it, once its allowed to curve there is a chance it will start to weave through allies and enemies becoming far more effective than I think a 4th level spell is intended to be starting to emulate 7th level spell Fire Storm. I could see it bending to hit or avoid one person... beyond that I would qualify it as abuse.

Hussar said:

Is there anyone who is arguing that it should do more damage?

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From Paul F ...However, if you could bend the wall as I have illustrated, it would be impossible to step out of the wall without stepping back into it and taking an additional 5d8. So damage would be 10d8 (55) minimum, compared to 9d6 (32) for an equal level fireball........

But, we've already shown that Paul F is mistaken. That you can't actually do that. The most you can do in a single round with Wall of Fire is 5d8, no matter what you do.

As a ruling, I'd allow it to arc because a circle is just a looping arc. It wouldn't be allowed to snake though, just a line, a single arc, or a circle.

Edit: To be more clear on what I'd allow:
An arc would be a line that bends in only one direction, and each segment could only be as long as the previous.