Damaging Allies in Combat - Is it acceptable?

[UngeheuerLich]

The best tactic i have seen my PC´s doing was:

in 3.5 i had following rule to help blasting wizards:

- roll an int check to see how precise he could throw the fireball to not catch a party member in an area

- creatures at the edge of an area benefit from evasion/improved evasion

- burning hands can be fired over small persons or rotated 90° to affect only a single foe.

the best preplanning i have witnessed as DM:

after blasting my group with illusionary and real ice storms from the darkness (where you can´t determine where it came from) they did following:

rary´s telepathic bond on the whole party and having 3 PC´s which hacked through the enemy city and calling air strikes from the wizard and the priest every round (ice storm and flame strike)...

 

[Prestidigitalis]

DracoSuave: You make some valid points, and though I disagree with some of them to some extent, I will let it slide (unless you really really want to know what I'm thinking, which I doubt).

Instead I will point out that for Wizards, the spell Winged Horde (Dragon 381, Level 1 At-Will, area burst within 10, enemies only, Int vs. Will, 1d6 + Int Psychic dmg + suppression of OAs) alleviates my objections, if my DM lets me take it. As a replacement for Scorching Burst, it really has no downside. As a way to do AoE damage without cramping the melee combatants style, it has no flaws. On the other hand, everyone seems to want to nerf it to death.

For Sorcerers, there is Lightning Strike (Arcane Power), which gives damage that I will grudgingly admit is almost AoE-ish, at least for Storm Sorcerers.

What I would really like is for WotC to add a Heroic Tier analog to War Wizardry or Spell Accuracy. They are both great feats, but useless to me because my group seems fated to spend 90% of its time in Heroic Tier, regardless of the campaign.

 

[DracoSuave]

Oh I get that, those -are- nice, but let's be honest. You do NOT need two AoE damage At-wills.

I personally like Chaos Orb for Wild Sorcerers myself, by the by.

 

[Kzach]

Even though it grates on me like nails clawing down a chalkboard, I can grudgingly see that there are SOME circumstances where it is ARGUABLY a valid tactic.

However, in a game today not only was it a bad tactic, but it was against the wishes of several players and yet the player still used his daily on two of the party.

How anyone could see that as anything but rude and selfish play is beyond my understanding.

I personally like Chaos Orb for Wild Sorcerers myself, by the by.

I had a lucky string of rolls today on my Chaos Bolt and hit four enemies in a row

 

[NMcCoy]

Sheesh. If someone damages my character deliberately after being denied permission? Well, at least one of my characters would respond to that by returning fire very aggressively (has some trauma from a treacherous comrade in his backstory), and that character's a striker-type optimized for burst damage... and PCs are not known for their high HP compared to monsters.

With permission granted, it can be a very useful tactic - I've singlehandedly made a combat much easier by dropping an enlarged Acid Mire directly on the entire party in the first round of combat, effectively neutralizing all the minions in the encounter.