Do spellcasters use Burning Hands in your game?

[AuraSeer]

I don't have my books with me to verify, so correct me if I am wrong. I was under the impression that when moving diagonally the first square was considered 5' and the second square was 10' for a total of 15' travelled for the two squares.

This is not explicitly stated in the books, but it's the correct way to use a grid map. When an unencumbered human takes one move action, he can travel 6 squares along an axis, but only 4 squares on the diagonal.

 

[Rel]

Although they come with their own set of hassles, this is one of the reasons that I like using my hex mat.

 

[candidus_cogitens]

Why is the 5/10 "rule" used so widely and regarded as correct, if it is not in the rules?

Not that I object to it. It actually sounds like a pretty good rule of thumb, both for movement and for spells.

But wait a sec! If you were using that rule, then the diagram for burning hands on p. 69 seems questionable. The squares that lie diagonally from the caster are not colored in, though the range of the spell should cover half of that square.

Granted, if you were actually measuring it, and not just using a rough rule of thumb, the center points of those two squares would be a little more than 10.5 feet away from the caster.

Somebody told me that some of these diagrams had been errated. Anyone know which ones?

 

[AuraSeer]

Why is the 5/10 "rule" used so widely and regarded as correct, if it is not in the rules?

Simple geometry. If you move two squares northeast (diagonally), you have travelled 10' east plus 10' squares north. Use the Pythagorean theorem (a^2 + b^2 = c^2) and you see that you have travelled 14 feet.

AFAIC this is how distances are always measured on a square grid, regardless of what rules system you happen to use.

But wait a sec! If you were using that rule, then the diagram for burning hands on p. 69 seems questionable. The squares that lie diagonally from the caster are not colored in, though the range of the spell should cover half of that square.

On the map, there isn't really any such thing as a "half square" of spell area. Each grid space is either fully affected by the spell, or wholly unaffected. This doesn't accurately simulate 'reality', of course, but it's consistent with the rest of the combat system. (Movement can happen only in 5' increments, so spell effects should have similar granularity.)

A semicircle with 10' radius should cover an area of about 50(pi) square feet, or about 150 sq.ft. Since each map square is 25 sq.ft, Burning Hands should affect (150 / 25) = 6 squares.

 

[Mulkhoran]

Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Do spellcasters use Burning Hands in your game?

It was errata'd. It only provides a Cover AC boost now. No Reflex save boost, and you still take AoOs.

As unforgivable as it would be to turn this into a Shield thread, it hasn't been errata'd. It's been suggested in Sage Advice, and it's in the FAQ, but neither of those are considered official errata.

Even the RPGA has it's own rule to specify this, which should make it fairly obvious how unclear this answer is.

 

[apsuman]

BH is good. Getting close is a real bummer, however, it's level 1 status just screams METAMAGIC for a sorcerer.

Enlarge (or widen) applied multiple times to allow you to get even more little baddies. Nothing like a level 12 caster wiping out every low level kobold in round one. Who needs great cleave?

Sculpt allows you to have a 5d4 cone of fire.

Empower (esp with enlarge) allows you to pump it up.

all in all BH is a really good spell.


g!

 

[Ciaran]

My wizard wishes he had a first level spell that dealt damage as effectively as Burning Hands.

Then again, my wizard wishes he had a first level spell that dealt damage, period. But that's what you have to expect when you have Nemmerle as your DM.

- Eric

 

[WCT-1]

What's even better is that metamagic feat in T&B that lets you alter the area of your spells. Turn it into 4 10' cubes, or the standard cone which is fairly large. It is only +1 caster level as well.

I could be mistaken, but I don't think you would want to sculpt burning hands into 4 10'cubes. The spell only has a range of 10', so unless your immune you would just set yourself on fire. This same argument applies to the 10' cylinder and the 20' radius ball. The 40' cone is a great idea however.

Enjoy.

 

[ZSutherland]

When I get to play at all instead of DM I almost always wind up playing the Arcaner since after all these years no one else has ever really figured out how it works. At low levels, I absolutely use Burning Hands.

Between lvls 2-8 it has better damage than MM, and has the ability to deal that damage to a few enemies in whole, rather than splitting it between a few as with higher level magic missile. It does allow a reflex save, but typically low level monsters have high Fort, low Ref & Will saves, so I'm never all that concerned. On the whole, I actually prefer it to MM.

Evilly enough, since my players don't "bother" with arcane casters all that often, I will occasionally be mean & pull an invis + burning hands on them. They have such a lovely tendency to clump together, and it gets 'em back for all the times they left my caster characters to fend for himself in melee.

Z

 

[Henry]

This was touched on briefly earlier by another poster, but I wanted to remind all here:

Burning hands is an excellent spell for use on lightly armored humanoid opponents. The wording of the spell states that the items set afire burn until put out with a full-round action. Our party was once beset by a bunch of pirates in Freeport, intending on doing us harm. One of our party mages used a wand of burning hands to keep his opponents busy by putting out the fires on their clothing EVERY ROUND, until the mages' several low-level pirates either:

a) retreated screaming off of the pier
b) switched opponents before extinguishing
c) simply dropped dead from the continual Barbequeing of his clothes and person.

After that fight, the player of the wizard swore he'd never look at burning hands derisively again.