Casting a Sleep spell behind a goblin?

[Gromm]

A related question: can tower shields block LOE? So, if in this example the goblin were hiding behind a tower shield, could he or the space behind him be targetted by the spell?

That would be one big tower shield, especially for a goblin.
5'x5' is pretty big, and the tower shield is at best maybe 3' wide (and thats being generous). With a mantlet (or movable wall basically, you could stop it, but thats like saying you can't cast throug a closed door.

 

[shurai]

Although it's not a direct answer to your question . . .

Goblins are presumably rather short. You could conceivably aim a spell's center at some point not actually on the floor. Why not attempt to set it off a few feet above and behind the goblin's head?

That's what I'd try to do, if I were the caster.

-S

 

[Uller]

Yeah. There is no reason why you can't try to center the effect at any point in space. It doesn't have to be on the floor or on a creature or object. So in regards to the tower shield: There are a lot of points in space behind the tower shield that are not blocked and the spell could easily center on that. In otherwords, except in some very special cases, creatures should not be considered to be blocking LoE. It is just easier that way...

As for the unseen gelatanious cube blocking LoE: I don't know of any specific rule about what happens when LoE is blocked unbeknownst to the caster. In most cases, I would rule that the spell is centered on the blocking object. Perhaps in some special cases I would rule that the spell fails altogether.

The only thing that specifically addresses this(that I am aware of) is the fireball spell. But that is a special case and not necessarily the general rule...

 

[DrSpunj]

Yeah...

shurai: We did think of centering on a point in space a little higher than what most people think of, shooting over the goblin's head. Even though the PHB spells list "Area of Effect" we all agree that it's more like "Volume of Effect" and one of my player's did some calculations to determine what effect casting the spell 5', 10' and 15' feet off the ground had on targets at ground level. It was pretty minimal at 5' (or thereabouts) so we figured at a minimum the goblin was okay. But that brought up my question above about changing the small goblin to a medium or large size creature, etc. With everyone interpretting enough room around a generic creature (not a gelatinous cube) to continue LoE it's moot now !

Uller: Thanks. I think the spell would fail according to the rules as written but would probably change that to center the effect on the blocking creature like you said. I like magic being dynamic and adaptable rather than rigid (in very odd situations like this).

Thanks all,
DrSpunj