Can a Large creature blast itself?

Another 'why' scenario:

I don't have the rules with me, but I recall reading that you can enter a square of a creature 2 sizes larger than you--perhaps a dragon wants to scorch a halfling rogue that just rolled underneath him and bloodied him.
 

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Can a Large creature blast itself?

pg 272 PBH
a blast fills a area adjacent to you ..
later " the blast is adjacent to the origin square which must be a square in your space..."
Clearly not. The quotes you selected are not contradictory. A "blast" must satisfy both. The blast must be adjacent to the creature. Therefore the Large or greater creature must choose an origin square in its space which permits that.

The only difference between Medium and Large+ creatures is that the Large+ creatures gets to choose which square is the origin square, permitting the blast to be shifted one or more squares left or right without assuming the "diamond corner" area of effect. That doesn't mean they are no longer bound by the very first sentence ("A blast fills an area adjacent to you ...").
 

Another 'why' scenario:

I don't have the rules with me, but I recall reading that you can enter a square of a creature 2 sizes larger than you--perhaps a dragon wants to scorch a halfling rogue that just rolled underneath him and bloodied him.

Well, that is a rather interesting point. Hadn't really considered that. You are correct, there is something about 2 size level differences. PHB 283, you can move THROUGH the space of a creature 2 sizes bigger/smaller than you, but you can never end movement in another creature's space, unless it is helpless or one or the other creature is tiny.

So this scenario is effectively irrelevant because the only attack that might happen while a PC is IN a monster's space would be an OA. I don't know of any creature which has a blast power that can be used as an OA. Were there such a creature, then it might potentially have a reason to want to do this.
 

Yes, they can. But why would someone do it?
I don't think they can but there's a lot of reason why they might want to.

a flanked dragon, which probably has resistance to its own breath, has pretty good motivation.
It just happened in one of the PbP games...
right. From a RAW standpoint it looks as if this is not allowed but it's pretty easy to see how a dragon might do this by arching his neck and firing downward.

Well, that is a rather interesting point. Hadn't really considered that. You are correct, there is something about 2 size level differences. PHB 283, you can move THROUGH the space of a creature 2 sizes bigger/smaller than you, but you can never end movement in another creature's space, unless it is helpless or one or the other creature is tiny.
some at wills can immobilize or stop movement and dnd is an exception based rules system so there's always a possibility that someone will be stopped in the square. At which point the creature might want to target you with the blast.

Pretty interesting problem. It really comes down to what type of campaign do you play. If it's strict RAW then you might want to go with no but if it makes sense we often house rule something, there's a pretty good case for the dragons head being the origin square and the fact that bite has reach kind of indicates the dragon's head is actually located 1 sq above the body. This gets into a slippery slope where the dragon could stick his head around a corner 5' away and not move into view.
 

I think in general we can observe that 4e pretty much goes with a philosophy of ignoring 'monster physiology' as a rules factor. Certain monsters have powers that obviously are inspired by the monster's physical form, but they are always just a power, resistance, etc added onto the basic mechanics. Rarely is there a monster that 'bends' a rule slightly by say having something like a multi square shifting movement.

Admittedly this does mean that some possibilities are ignored by RAW, such as your example of a dragon sticking its head around a corner. Other situations aren't really covered either, like the fact that a huge creature probably has some ability to attack opponents that are at a higher elevation, but then elevation rules aren't really all that comprehensively developed either. Indeed these would be situations requiring DM adjudication, and you might thus want to rule that a creature can place a blast template in a way that would normally be outside the rules, but you also have to be careful. If a dragon can stick its head around a corner why can't a PC wizard stick her wand around a corner and blast a shot down a hallway? I would be pretty conservative in my application of nonstandard mechanics just because otherwise you're likely to end up with PCs wanting to do stuff that could be unbalancing.
 

So this scenario is effectively irrelevant because the only attack that might happen while a PC is IN a monster's space would be an OA. I don't know of any creature which has a blast power that can be used as an OA. Were there such a creature, then it might potentially have a reason to want to do this.

there's also the 10th level rogue utility power "close quarters". that one allows the rogue to "ride" the enemy, and stay in his space.
 


I'd be careful about changing blast rules based on physics. If 4e followed physics, blasts and bursts wouldn't be squares, euclidean geometry would apply, and gelatinous cubes couldn't be knocked prone.

Also, if you allow a dragon to do this, why can't a Wizard use Thunderwave from the back edge of his square and clear away 5 of the squares adjacent to him?
 

Also, if you allow a dragon to do this, why can't a Wizard use Thunderwave from the back edge of his square and clear away 5 of the squares adjacent to him?

For 2 reasons that I can think of:

First, the theory behind this discussion is that when a large creature uses a Blast power, it picks one of it's squares as the point of origin, and the blast effect has to be adjacent to that square. Since a normal, medium-sized wizard only takes up one square, it would be impossible for him to blast his own square since it is the point of origin.

Second, ignoring the above, if he did blast his own square, he would have to see if he hit himself, and if he did, he'd have to push himself as well, a picture in my mind that makes me giggle. ;) The example above of a dragon blasting it's own area with it's breath weapon to which it is resistant makes a bit more sense.
 

I'd be careful about changing blast rules based on physics. If 4e followed physics, blasts and bursts wouldn't be squares, euclidean geometry would apply, and gelatinous cubes couldn't be knocked prone.
Well, the game is only a simulation up to a point - you can't model everything, so some divergence is worth it. In case of the squares, that's just simplification, you're deciding that it's not worth tracking non-square regions for simplicity. For gelatinous cubes; likewise (and note you can re-fluff). It's simpler to have one rule; so you avoid, where at all possible, making special rules.

On the other hand, blasts aren't really much simpler if they're adjacent to the creature or just adjacent to any square of the creature. It's still an NxN field, and works as usual; and you're not describing an exception but a general rule. So the question isn't whether or not to simplify, but to simplify to which interpretation.

Also, if you allow a dragon to do this, why can't a Wizard use Thunderwave from the back edge of his square and clear away 5 of the squares adjacent to him?

Not necessarily; the wizard's thunderwave wouldn't be adjacent to any of his squares then. And, even if you'd permit arbitrary space-sharing, there's the question of why the wizard would want this - even if he could, a wizard isn't generally as resistant to thunderwave as a dragon would be to his breath.

In any case, I don't think blasting yourself is in the spirit of the game at all, so regardless of whether you could make a simple and consistent rule, I'd still not prefer it.
 

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