NOW LIVE! Today's the day you meet your new best friend. You don’t have to leave Wolfy behind... In 'Pets & Sidekicks' your companions level up with you!

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Message: <blockquote data-quote="OB1" data-source="post: 7003255" data-attributes="member: 6796241">On a grid, I rule that you have to be engaged with a target of the AoE for it to affect you as well, and I don't consider allies next to each other as being engaged with each other.  So in your example, the other allies wouldn't be affected. However, in TOM I use a concept of Engagement Pools to help describe who is fighting with whom and in this case, if you are close enough to touch another PC who is engaged with an enemy, you are now part of that engagement pool.  All members of an engagement pool are hit by an AoE.  This probably sounds a lot more complicated than it is in actual play.  The important thing for the PCs in TOM is understanding when and whom they are engaged with (thus making them vulnerable to AoEs targeting that group), and which and how many enemies they can hit with an AoE.  With the latter, when a player wants to cast a fireball, I may tell them they can hit 2 or 3 Engagement pools or x creatures clumped together but not engaged with anyone, using the DMG AoE rules as guidance.  If there is a question on the number or which groups, we'll roll some quick dice to resolve the uncertainty and the player can then make their decision or even decide to do something else.I'm particularly happy with the way I've refined how I run ToM in this edition, and I've taken a bunch of players who were grid fanatics and converted them to loving the free form nature and epic battlefields that ToM allow.  This rule was central to getting their buy in so that they can have some certainty without the grid.</blockquote>

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