Blade Barrier

[Caliban]

That's not what the spell says.

Creatures within the blade barrier when it is invoked take the damage - negated with a successful Reflex Save provided they leave by the shortest route possible.

After that, if you enter or pass through, you automatically take damage.

By the wording, if you're in it when it is invoked and elect not to leave by the shortest route possible, you take the damage. After that, you only take damage if you enter it or pass through it. If you stand still, you're doing neither.

Likewise, if you enter it, you take damage, but if you then don't pass through it or enter it again, you're fine.

By the wording.

-Hyp.

If you go buy what they mean instead of exactly what they say, then you take damage every round.

I don't find it reasonable for a spinning plane of blades to shape itself around you if you don't move. I think that if that was the intended behavior, they would have mentioned it specifically.

 

[Caliban]

Hyp agreed with that, if you move at all, even a 5' step, within the plane of a blade barrier you take damage.

If you don't move at all, and took damage the first round in a blade barrier, if you stand stock still successive rounds, you don't take damage after the first round. Any other type of movement is going to cause you to eat whirrling blades of death.

Good single person in radius blade barrier analogy:
Best way to picture a Blade Barrier is actually like a giant ring, both the outside and the inside rings are razor sharp, and the hole within the center is pretty tiny, just barely big enough to fit someone. When the ring of blades is first summoned it automatically puts the center safezone of itself in an area not covered by potential targets of the spell. If you make your save, you jump out of it before it hits you. If you fail your save, you jump into the eye of the blade barrier, but still took damage from that movement. If you move any direction within the radius the inside sharp edge, or the outside sharp edge of the blade barrier slices and dices. If you stay still inside that "eye" you're safe, now. If you're outside the barrier and try to get to the eye, or get to the other side, you take damage for passing through it. But once you've taken damage in the radius, if you stop moving again, you've gotten into that "eye", you take no further damage.

That's a good analogy/example for picturing when damage is taken that helps my players picture it on occasion.

If it worked that way, then it wouldn't be able to provide cover, which the spell specifically says it does.

 

[Janos Antero]

If it was a 30ft disk, tilted 45 degrees, with a hole in the center like in my ring analogy, that would explain perfectly why it gives one half cover.

If it was one solid mass of blades, it would give full cover, at the very least from any attack attempting to pass through, arrows would be shredded instantly.

Circumstantial evidence: The question about this and blade barrier was raised very early in 3e, yet they went with the same wording again in Divine Storm, and never errataed or fixed it any of the other times this issue came up. While that is hardly concrete proof of what they may have intended, it's still some indication of things.

Hell this question was brought up in 2e in regards to blade barrier, and although the text isn't exactly the same, the pass through comment has remained almost identical.

 

[Hypersmurf]

If it worked that way, then it wouldn't be able to provide cover, which the spell specifically says it does.

I don't see how one implies the other...?

How does someone not-taking-damage negate cover?

-Hyp.

 

[Caliban]

I don't see how one implies the other...?

How does someone not-taking-damage negate cover?

-Hyp.

If it's a ring with a hole in the center instead of a plane, why does it provide cover?

If you use his theory for why you can stand in the middle of the blade barrier and be completely safe, I don't think it would provide cover in the way that the spell states.

The spell states that it creates a spinning disk, not a spinning torus.

I think they were listing conditions in which you would take damage from the spell, and that taking damage if you remained in the area of the whirling blades seemed so obvious they didn't think to list it specifically as a condition for taking damage.

I think if it was truly intended that you could hang out in the center, instead of having to place it between you and your opponents, it would specifically state that.

 

[Hypersmurf]

If it's a ring with a hole in the center instead of a plane, why does it provide cover?

For the same reason that an arrowslit - a wall with a hole in the center - provides cover?

I think they were listing conditions in which you would take damage from the spell, and that taking damage if you remained in the area of the whirling blades seemed so obvious they didn't think to list it specifically as a condition for taking damage.

What about Flaming Sphere? If the caster uses an MEA, it can enter a square with a creature, at which point it stops moving for the round and deals 2d6 damage.

If in the next round, the creature doesn't move, but the caster doesn't use an MEA, does the creature take another 2d6 damage?

-Hyp.

 

[Wormwood]

If in the next round, the creature doesn't move, but the caster doesn't use an MEA, does the creature take another 2d6 damage?

I always thought that's how it worked (same as Blade Barrier, IMO).

 

[Caliban]

For the same reason that an arrowslit - a wall with a hole in the center - provides cover?

Yes, but according to you any number of creatures can stand in side the are of affect without taking damage. It reshapes itself so that each person is standing in their own clear area? Why?

It's a 30' radius disk, not swiss cheese.

What about Flaming Sphere? If the caster uses an MEA, it can enter a square with a creature, at which point it stops moving for the round and deals 2d6 damage.

If in the next round, the creature doesn't move, but the caster doesn't use an MEA, does the creature take another 2d6 damage?

-Hyp.

Absolutely, if he fails his Reflex save. That's the way it's been played at every table I've ever seen it used in.

 

[Hypersmurf]

Absolutely, if he fails his Reflex save. That's the way it's been played at every table I've ever seen it used in.

Huh. I DM a sorcerer who throws a lot of Flaming Spheres.

By my reading, the Sphere deals damage when it moves into a square with a creature and stops. If the sorcerer doesn't cause it to attack a creature in a given round, it doesn't deal any damage.

That's how I run Flaming Sphere, and I interpret Blade Barrier along the same lines. The spells state the conditions under which they deal damage; if those conditions aren't met, no damage is done.

Spiritual Weapon, for example, specifically states that the Weapon continues to attack if you don't redirect it. Flaming Sphere says nothing of the sort.

-Hyp.

 

[Lord Pendragon]

I'm only one DM, but I play Flaming Sphere as Caliban has stated. If the sphere and target remain in the same square, it continues to force a reflex save to avoid it.

I haven't any experience with Blade Barrier, though, so I'll leave it at that.