A Couple of Questions- How Would You Rule?

[GX.Sigma]

Wall of Force into water:
If you're thinking about it in terms of world physics: The SRD says that the wall fails unless it is continuous and unbroken when it is formed. Since you're trying to evoke it into a volume that the water already occupies, I'd say it fails. (In other words, it can't push water out of the way to make room for itself.)

Temporary hit points:
Say you're at 0 hp, you're unconscious, and you're dying. If you get temporary hp, then you're still at 0 (real) hp, still unconscious, and still dying, and you have some temporary hp.

 

[Balesir]

Sorry, I think I phrased it poorly- what I mean is that we've ruled that the surface of the water breaks LoE- in other words, you can't cast spells effectively from out of the water to in the water, but you can cast from one spot underwater to another. You just can't break the interface.

Ah, OK - in that case working underwater will be OK, but anything from above the surface to below or vice versa will fail - including area effects like walls, bursts and blasts (because they need LoE from the origin square to the target square).

I don't know why I've got that rule, actually; I thought it was RAW, that I saw it somewhere, but perhaps I'm misremembering?

The Compendium rule on LoE is quite brief, but it says that LoE is blocked by passing through or touching "blocking terrain". Blocking terrain is defined as "terrain that blocks movement", which water doesn't. You have to swim in it if you don't have the keyword "aquatic", but it doesn't prevent movement; you can even mix swimming with other movement types in the same move action, so the water's surface doesn't have any "blocking" function, either. Various attacks against targets in water are penalised (a new rule in Essentials/the Compendium, I think?).

The wall of force itself blocks LoE once created, of course, since it does block movement (which is part of the point of it!).

 

[pemerton]

a new rule in Essentials/the Compendium, I think?

I thought it was in the DMG, but then I got temp hp wrong! (Maybe I was thinking of regeneration.)