Color Spray and Imbue Arrow?

[StalkingBlue]

Does the Arcane Archer's 2nd-level ability permit the character to place non-circular area spells accurately through an arrow? That would involve not only hitting the desired starting point of, say, the cone-shaped burst of a Colour Spray spell by hitting it with the imbued arrow, but also determining the direction in which the burst should go off. Possible or not? Special requirements, other than succeeding on the attack roll to hit the desired spell centre spot?

 

[Terraism]

Does the Arcane Archer's 2nd-level ability permit the character to place non-circular area spells accurately through an arrow? That would involve not only hitting the desired starting point of, say, the cone-shaped burst of a Colour Spray spell by hitting it with the imbued arrow, but also determining the direction in which the burst should go off. Possible or not? Special requirements, other than succeeding on the attack roll to hit the desired spell centre spot?

I'd say it's fine, and rule that cones are directed the direction of the arrow.

 

[StalkingBlue]

Hm ok - thanks for your view, Terraism.

Essentially your approach means that cone-shaped spells are unlikely to be channeled through an arrow. That's because the caster has little contol over the direction in which the effect will go off, unless the 'angle correction' he needs for a successful spell is very low so that he can achieve it by moving sideways across the battlefield.

I was thinking about including this ability in a channeler(=mage)/archer Prestige Class I'm making for a player in my game, but it looks like it'd have more flavour than actual use. Globe-shaped area spells tend to have a range long enough to make arrow-channeling unnecessary anyway, and if cone-shaped or line-shaped spells can't be directed properly through the arrow, the ability won't see much use with those either.

 

[Li Shenron]

If you are worried about the usefulness of the ability, you may consider ruling that it allows also for touch spells to be channeled. You will still have to make a ranged attack to hit, while with area spells you merely select more or less where the arrow should land.

 

[Terraism]

Essentially your approach means that cone-shaped spells are unlikely to be channeled through an arrow. That's because the caster has little contol over the direction in which the effect will go off, unless the 'angle correction' he needs for a successful spell is very low so that he can achieve it by moving sideways across the battlefield.

I don't see how that'd make chanelling cone spells through an arrow so useless. Realistically, there's only eight real directions for it to point - the four cardinal directions, and the in-betweens. (Technically, yeah, there'd be 360, but that's a little too much complication for a game.) If a caster wants to just cast a cone-shaped spell, he has to attack from the correct side to get the right angle he wants, so why should he be able to fire an arrow while say, facing a goblin - and have the cone start at the goblin and come back to him? It seems like that's what you're arguing he should be able to.

(Now, I'm coming at this from the perspective of regularly using a battlemat, so some of my assumptions may be different. I was also a bit confused about what you meant by "angle correction," so if I misunderstood what you meant about him not being able to control the direction, let me know, and I'll think again. )

 

[StalkingBlue]

...
(Now, I'm coming at this from the perspective of regularly using a battlemat, so some of my assumptions may be different. I was also a bit confused about what you meant by "angle correction," so if I misunderstood what you meant about him not being able to control the direction, let me know, and I'll think again. )

Hi Terraism - randomlings says you'd like to continue this. I've dropped the idea of including this ability in my Prestige Class for now, so don't worry about more thoughts unless you like to.

I use a battle grid, too. 8) Point is, my game setting is mostly outdoors, so long distances matter; I guess that's prob where we weren't seeing eye to eye. At longer distances a cone going off towards you might be a brilliant idea actually, if you have a way of pulling this off - you just need to be sure you're out of range yourself! No big deal for Color Spray at a mere 15', and not much bigger deal for a 60' cone on a drawn-out battlefield or before the enemy can close with your melee line.


To try and explain my angle correction thought with an example:

I'll assume the desired point of origin of a cone is directly N of the caster's position as his turn comes up.

As long as the caster wants the cone to go off N, that's fine. Arrow shot, cone goes off.

Now assume the caster wishes for the cone to go off NE instead (45° angle to the east) - this is where angle correction comes in.
If the cone always continues the flight path of the arrow as you suggest, the caster has to move position before he shoots to correct the angle of his spell - right?

No big deal at close quarters. If the desired point of origin is only, say, 10' N of the caster and there's a bit of room to move, he simply moves 7' NW diagonally to get at a 45° angle to the S-N axis, and shoots the coned arrow.

If distances are greater though, it becomes more difficult. At 100' distance, the caster would have to move diagonally by 70' - which not only is more than a double move (so he loses a whole round by correcting his firing angle by 45°), but it will almost certainly bring him out from behind his allied melee line and leave him standing on his own and vulnerable to counterattack.

Any clearer?

 

[Terraism]

Hi Terraism - randomlings says you'd like to continue this. I've dropped the idea of including this ability in my Prestige Class for now, so don't worry about more thoughts unless you like to.

Yup! It was an interesting idea, I thought, and the fact that I wasn't quite sure what you'd meant by one little thing was nagging at the back of my mind. Lots. The kind of nagging that requires repeat checking, thinking "huh - wonder if they replied yet."

I use a battle grid, too. 8) Point is, my game setting is mostly outdoors, so long distances matter; I guess that's prob where we weren't seeing eye to eye. At longer distances a cone going off towards you might be a brilliant idea actually, if you have a way of pulling this off - you just need to be sure you're out of range yourself! No big deal for Color Spray at a mere 15', and not much bigger deal for a 60' cone on a drawn-out battlefield or before the enemy can close with your melee line.

Agreed on the brilliance - if you could pull it off, you could potentially slam a lot of folks from behind. (Because we don't do combat to terribly often in my game, we go all tactical when combat comes up- so we use facing, too. That'd be really icky then. )

I'll assume the desired point of origin of a cone is directly N of the caster's position as his turn comes up.

As long as the caster wants the cone to go off N, that's fine. Arrow shot, cone goes off.

Agreed on this point anyway - I don't see any problems with it, as stated previously.

Now assume the caster wishes for the cone to go off NE instead (45° angle to the east) - this is where angle correction comes in.
If the cone always continues the flight path of the arrow as you suggest, the caster has to move position before he shoots to correct the angle of his spell - right?

Ok. I've got what you mean now, and I think my problem is the logic of it - which, actually, runs counter to the actual rules. By the rules, since there's no facing, you can cast a cone (originating in your square) in any direction. Nothing says so, but I've always envisioned cones going in the direction the caster is facing. Imagine this:

A man in robes is facing north. He's obviously casting a spell, and when it goes off... a multicoloured blast shoots to the side, while he's still facing forward.
​

Seems really odd to me. I arrived at my guess for how the arrow/channeling trick would work extrapolating that - since I see a caster as needing to face the direction the blast goes, I expect the arrow to "face" that way, too.

Any clearer?

Yuppers. I know where you're coming from now, which is good, because the nagging curiosity can stop bugging me at odd moments (yay!). 'Course, now I'm stuck with this funny image of a spellcaster doing this kinda thing and launching a Cone of Cold from behind.

(And thanks for the reply, just to satisfy my curiosity.)

 

[StalkingBlue]

He he I see now - facing house rules! Yeah, in that context my line of thought wouldn't make sense.

I don't use facing. Personally I don't have problems with face-less representation on a battle grid, IME people in melee are always whirling and dodging and dancing around each other anyway, so I see the static image on the battlemap as a tactical tool only - but if facing works for you guys, great! In that case your spellcasters need Kung Fu; those guys are great on the twisting-around-with-your-legs-crossed.