D&D 5E How Many Spaces on a Grid Does Cloud of Daggers Effect?

[Hexmage-EN]

I was thinking of taking Cloud of Daggers for my Wizard but I can't seem to find a clear answer on what the AoE for the spell is intended to be.

You fill the air with spinning daggers in a cube 5 feet on each side, centered on a point you choose within range

Choose an intersection of squares or hexes as the point of origin of an area of effect, then follow its rules as normal.

Based on these, I'm imagining this as the spell's AoE:

However, the spell's description states that it is a cube, an AoE mentioned in the PHB.

You select a cube’s point of origin, which lies anywhere on a face of the cubic effect. The cube’s size is expressed as the length of each side. A cube’s point of origin is not included in the cube’s area of effect, unless you decide otherwise.

This leads to interpretations that Cloud of Daggers only occupies a single space on a grid. However, this text states that a cube's point of origin is on the face of a cube, whereas the text for Cloud of Daggers states that cube produced by that spell has an origin in its center rather on a face.

Jeremy Crawford, when asked, basically said that the AoE is either one space or four spaces, whichever your DM prefers.


Crawford has also said that, save for AoEs that are circular, any space that an AoE covers to any degree is considered to be effected.


Compare to the cantrip Create Bonfire:

You create a bonfire on ground that you can see within range. Until the spell ends, the magic bonfire fills a 5-foot cube.

The wording here omits the game concept of a point as its origin, so it's clearer to me that only a single grid space would be affected. Plus it's a cantrip and not a 2nd-level spell, so a single space feels much more appropriate for an AOE.

I'm curious to see what the general consensus here is. Personally, I feel that the spell description for Cloud of Daggers contradicts the rules for cubic AoEs so much that it would be better written as a spherical AoE.

EDIT: I'm fairly confident now that Cloud of Daggers is supposed to be an AoE that can affect four squares but also does not fill them, so creatures can squeeze past unharmed but are hurt if they walk into it normally or are pushed in. No other AoE spell is like this, but no other AoE spell is described as a cube centered on a point (as far as I'm aware).

 

[Oofta]

Spacing is just a game mechanic for position and movement. A person doesn't take up the entire 5 foot area, you just need that much room to maneuver in combat without interfering with anyone else. The dagger spell takes up 1 5 foot cube, you can't "split" it between multiple squares because the squares don't really exist. Try to target more than 1 and everyone will just move a foot or so and be unaffected.

 

[Hexmage-EN]

I changed the title of the thread to better get across my question. Unfortunately it doesn't seem I can change the wording of the poll.

 

[Benjamin Olson]

I rarely agree so whole heartedly with Jeremy Crawford, but basically what he is saying is that normally a player could place an effect like this to exactly fit in a single square, cross into two, or cross four, but that (presumably in a very grid combat focused group, a DM may choose to make effects center in squares and conform exactly to grid lines. That's exactly how I've always interpreted these things.

I don't know what more there is to say. Grid combat is optional, and hence 5e isn't built around it so thoroughly that there is a rigid rule for how every spell conforms to grid combat unless your table wants to create and enforce such rigidity.

Technically the answer is one, two, three, four, or, five squares (three and five are possible by angling the 5 foot square). In the case of 5 I wouldn't allow it because the points are only occupying a tiny portion of four squares, and it doesn't seem reasonable that characters (who, unless they are gelatenous cubes, do not occupy the entire space of a 5ft cube) would be effected by having such a slight invasion of their space.

 

[J.Quondam]

I read it as one five foot cube; or one square, if a grid is used.
Imo, the words in the spell description, "centered on a point you choose within range," are redundant and needlessly confusing. I interpret Crawford's typically handwave-y "snap to grid" comment here as an attempt to reconcile theater-of-mind play with tactical grid play.

 

[ninjayeti]

The whole point of using a grid is clarity and simplicity. So everything needs to "snap to grid" or it just becomes pointless. If a 5x5 AOE can span multiple squares, then can't characters just stand half in one square and half in another to avoid the part of square that is covered by the effect? At which point your not really using a grid at all.

 

[darjr]

I’d allow the occasional chance to get more than one person. Mostly I’d ask the player to choose a person or a space/grid square if we were using it.

I otherwise agree with Jeremy Crawford.

 

[Benjamin Olson]

The whole point of using a grid is clarity and simplicity. So everything needs to "snap to grid" or it just becomes pointless. If a 5x5 AOE can span multiple squares, then can't characters just stand half in one square and half in another to avoid the part of square that is covered by the effect? At which point your not really using a grid at all.

Not exactly conforming to a grid at all times in no way renders the grid pointless. It still clarifies positioning, even if it is not allowed to dictate it. Many of us use the grid (and find it useful) without feeling particularly bound by it when something possible gridless would be impossible with strict grid adhearance. Certainly any approach to grid rules that makes effects work radically different on squares than hexes seems to me like it's taking grid conformity too seriously.

 

[Asisreo]

The whole point of using a grid is clarity and simplicity. So everything needs to "snap to grid" or it just becomes pointless. If a 5x5 AOE can span multiple squares, then can't characters just stand half in one square and half in another to avoid the part of square that is covered by the effect? At which point your not really using a grid at all.

The PHB specifically says that when you move while using a grid in combat, you move square-by-square. It doesn't make those same concessions about where you can target, except how a DM might decide AoE's might choose a point of intersection.

 

[Asisreo]

I read it as one five foot cube; or one square, if a grid is used.
Imo, the words in the spell description, "centered on a point you choose within range," are redundant and needlessly confusing. I interpret Crawford's typically handwave-y "snap to grid" comment here as an attempt to reconcile theater-of-mind play with tactical grid play.

Well, remember that you choose the outward face as the point of origin on a regular cubic AoE. But this spell's specific beats the general of a the point of origin needing to be on the cube face.

So it isn't redundant since it changes the way the spell can be chosen on a grid-based combat.