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Message: <blockquote data-quote="knizia.fan" data-source="post: 4338957" data-attributes="member: 69925">The diagram in the book is correct.  The 2 squares you mention are outside of the burst not because of cover, but because they are out of range.  To go around the corner of a wall, you can't go diagonally.  PHB p. 273 says you count range from the origin by taking one step to all adjacent squares (allowing you to cut corners only for the first step), and then count further steps normally (without diagonally cutting corners).  So those 2 squares are at a range of 3 from the origin square.  The statue doesn't fill its square like a wall, so you can count through its space.Actually, if the only line you can draw to the target square passes along a wall, you don't have line of effect.  The rules say the line is blocked if it passes through or touches a blocking obstacle.  (It seems that that the 3.5E concept of a spread no longer exists in 4E -- no more fireballs going around corners.)I think the rules are OK as written.  You seem to be mixing up line-of-sight/line-of-effect with cover, but the rules are slightly different for those two concepts.  PHB p. 273 is about line-of-sight/line-of-effect.  If you can draw a line to any point of a square, even if all the corner points are blocked, you can target that square with an effect.PHB p. 281 is about cover.  Superior cover only checks to see if lines to the target square's corners are blocked.  So no, a small obstruction doesn't automatically provide superior cover, because we're not checking every single line of sight to see if 4 are blocked.  We only check the 4 lines to the corners.You can have all 4 target space corners blocked but still have line of effect. For example, an archer behind an arrow slit would have all of her space's corners blocked, but one would still have line of effect to her space. She has superior cover, but one can still shoot her or throw a spell at her.  The arrow slit is the classic example of the difference between cover and line of effect.  It's harder to show this happening on a map, but you could have:[code]. . . . . . . . . . .. . . . . . . . . . w. X . . . . . . . . .m . . X . . . . . . .. . . . . . . . . . .[/code]If I've drawn this right, the walls 'X' keep the wizard 'w' from drawing a line to any corner of the monster's 'm' space, but he can still draw a line to the middle of the right edge of the 'm' space.  So 'w' has line-of-effect to 'm', but 'm' has superior cover from 'w'.-- k.fan</blockquote>

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