Deathwatch questions

[brehobit]

I've got a few quick questions about the spell Deathwatch.

1. In general how do you play a long duration spell that works as a cone? Do you pick the cone once a round as a free action? Can you spend actions to move the cone? Something else?
2. How does the spell interact with invisible or otherwise hidden opponents? Say there is only one legal target in the cone and they are invisible. Do you learn they are in the cone? Where they are? Nothing? Something else?
3. How about if they are behind a door or wall? I'm guessing that such a thing would block the spell, but I'm really not sure.

I think I abused the spell to get a count of baddies behind a door/wall. But we then had a lot of invisible opponents and that issue could have come up too (I chose not to raise it).

Thanks,

 

[Jhaelen]

I've got a few quick questions about the spell Deathwatch.

1. In general how do you play a long duration spell that works as a cone? Do you pick the cone once a round as a free action? Can you spend actions to move the cone? Something else?
2. How does the spell interact with invisible or otherwise hidden opponents? Say there is only one legal target in the cone and they are invisible. Do you learn they are in the cone? Where they are? Nothing? Something else?
3. How about if they are behind a door or wall? I'm guessing that such a thing would block the spell, but I'm really not sure.

I think I abused the spell to get a count of baddies behind a door/wall. But we then had a lot of invisible opponents and that issue could have come up too (I chose not to raise it).

Thanks,

Well, first I'd like to note that deathwatch is a cone-shaped emanation:

A burst spell affects whatever it catches in its area, even including creatures that you can’t see. It can’t affect creatures with total cover from its point of origin (in other words, its effects don’t extend around corners). The default shape for a burst effect is a sphere, but some burst spells are specifically described as cone-shaped. A burst’s area defines how far from the point of origin the spell’s effect extends.

An emanation spell functions like a burst spell, except that the effect continues to radiate from the point of origin for the duration of the spell. Most emanations are cones or spheres.

Most spells that affect an area have a particular shape, such as a cone, cylinder, line, or sphere.

A cone-shaped spell shoots away from you in a quarter-circle in the direction you designate. It starts from any corner of your square and widens out as it goes. Most cones are either bursts or emanations (see above), and thus won’t go around corners.

This at least answers your third question: a door or wall will block the spell, since there is no line of effect to the target and in contrast to e.g. detect magic the spell description doesn't say that it penetrates barriers.

Detect magic might give a hint about your first answer, though: It says that each round you can turn to cover a new area. Since deathwatch doesn't even require concentration, this sounds like a free action (once per round).

I'm not sure if it applies to deathwatch by RAW, but redirecting spells generally requires a move action, so I'd allow the caster to spend move actions to cover additional quarter-circles in a given round.

Regarding your second question, the spell also affects invisible creatures, but since it doesn't reveal their location, you just get the status information for each affected creature, e.g. if there's an invisible, unwounded necromancer with four invisible zombie minions, one of which is behind a wall corner within your cone's area of effect, you'd get the following info: there are three undead creatures and one fighting off death.