Fireball, crowds and line of effect

[Arthedain]

This (silly?) problem came up during today's session:

Say we have a wizard W who wants to use a fireball spell, and a group of creatures C stand between him and his intended target T(or, more precisely, the intended target square/intersection). Everyone is medium-sized, and moving to the left or right of the group is not an option . Think "wizard with lots of minions between himself and the pesky heroes".

W

CCCC
CCCC

T

According to the fireball spell :

You point your finger and determine the range (distance and height) at which the fireball is to burst. A glowing, pea-sized bead streaks from the pointing digit and, unless it impacts upon a material body or solid barrier prior to attaining the prescribed range, blossoms into the fireball at that point. (An early impact results in an early detonation.) If you attempt to send the bead through a narrow passage, such as through an arrow slit, you must “hit” the opening with a ranged touch attack, or else the bead strikes the barrier and detonates prematurely.

The point of contention is the text in bold. After reading the description of Line of Effect (page 176, 3.5 PHB), and the FAQ (MainFAQ v06272003, page 52) I am the opinion that "normal" creatures do not block Line of Effect, and thus the glowing, pea-sized bead doesn't hit them and cause an early detonation. As it says in the FAQ (perhaps a bit out of context, but I'll take my chances) : "A creature generally doesn't block line of effect because it almost always leaves the requisite 1 square foot of open space per 5-foot-square area it happens to occupy."

Any opinions, or preferably, hard quotes from designers? I just read through Skip Williams' Rules on the Game, but don't feel any wiser (might have something to do with the fact that it's 6 AM in the morning, and my brain needs some sleep...)

Thanks in advance!

 

[Jdvn1]

You can aim the spell so it goes above the crowd and detonates over T. Otherwise, you don't have line of sight.

 

[BSF]

No line of sight? So a crowd of minions will even protect against something like magic missile?

I do not know of any specific rules to support shooting a fireball bead through the crowd with or without requiring a touch attack. On the other hand, I would certainly allow a spellcaster to shoot over the heads of the crowd, so it would be a non-issue in al but the most extreme situations. Though to be fair to the archers that had to use a feat for Precise Shot, I would probably require some sort of die roll to shoot through the crowd. It isn't in the rules, but it does seem kinda cheesy to allow a fireball through a crowd while the trained archer can't shoot through the crowd.

But for a spell like magic missile, that will hit a target you can see, a crowd wouldn't have any effect.

Now if there were a gelatinous cube in the way, that would be different. But that is a special case due to it being a creature that is a cube filling all of a space.

 

[TheAuldGrump]

If there are that many people between the target and the caster odds are good that he suffers the embarrasment of premature detonation. I would treat it much like trying to throw the fireball through an arrow slit (ie a ranged touch attack) with failure resulting in the first target in a straight line to the intended target being the lucky recipient.

Otherwise there would be no need to describe the results of premature detonation, it would never happen.

The Auld Grump

 

[Silveras]

This (silly?) problem came up during today's session:

Say we have a wizard W who wants to use a fireball spell, and a group of creatures C stand between him and his intended target T(or, more precisely, the intended target square/intersection). Everyone is medium-sized, and moving to the left or right of the group is not an option . Think "wizard with lots of minions between himself and the pesky heroes".

W

CCCC
CCCC

T

According to the fireball spell :


The point of contention is the text in bold. After reading the description of Line of Effect (page 176, 3.5 PHB), and the FAQ (MainFAQ v06272003, page 52) I am the opinion that "normal" creatures do not block Line of Effect, and thus the glowing, pea-sized bead doesn't hit them and cause an early detonation. As it says in the FAQ (perhaps a bit out of context, but I'll take my chances) : "A creature generally doesn't block line of effect because it almost always leaves the requisite 1 square foot of open space per 5-foot-square area it happens to occupy."

Any opinions, or preferably, hard quotes from designers? I just read through Skip Williams' Rules on the Game, but don't feel any wiser (might have something to do with the fact that it's 6 AM in the morning, and my brain needs some sleep...)

Thanks in advance!

This sort of assumes a 2-dimensional world. If the mage can climb up onto a balcony, can fly, or can otherwise get above the crowd, it ceases to be as much of a blockage.

I do not know of any explicit statements about the situation from the WotC designers.

However, in CityWorks (from Fantasy Flight Games), Mike Mearls addresses the tactical considerations of crowds. The book is 3.0, but easily adaptable to 3.5.

The key is that, while 1 creature does not block line of effect, a crowd is much bigger and more of an impediment. Think of it as similar to the Swarm creature type; individually, the creatures in it are not a problem, but when gathered in numbers, they take on characteristics like those of a single new "thing".

In CityWorks, Mearls divides crowds into descriptions of density; Light, Moderate, Heavy, and Packed. Based on density, a crowd can provide Cover to a creature in (or on the other side of) it, can reduce your speed as you try to move through it, and can limit your ability to see creatures in (or on the other side of) it.

For purposes of the fireball spell, if the crowd is dense enough (and the drawing you provided is about what I would call "dense enough"), I would treat it like trying to get the spell through an arrow slit. If he is also trying NOT to hit the crowd, I'd say the -4 penalty for firing ranged attacks into melee would also apply (so also would Precise Shot, if the character has it). This is one of the reasons that spellcasting in the city is a dangerous thing, and (in campaigns like mine) is likely to get the PCs into a great deal of trouble with the local government.

 

[RigaMortus]

No line of sight? So a crowd of minions will even protect against something like magic missile?

I do not know of any specific rules to support shooting a fireball bead through the crowd with or without requiring a touch attack. On the other hand, I would certainly allow a spellcaster to shoot over the heads of the crowd, so it would be a non-issue in al but the most extreme situations. Though to be fair to the archers that had to use a feat for Precise Shot, I would probably require some sort of die roll to shoot through the crowd. It isn't in the rules, but it does seem kinda cheesy to allow a fireball through a crowd while the trained archer can't shoot through the crowd.

But for a spell like magic missile, that will hit a target you can see, a crowd wouldn't have any effect.

Now if there were a gelatinous cube in the way, that would be different. But that is a special case due to it being a creature that is a cube filling all of a space.

The difference is that the archer is trained through normal means (ie non magical) and the fireball spell is... well... magical... So I would rule he could do it w/o any additional "to hit" rolls.

I do agree that a gel cube would be blocking the wall however...

 

[RigaMortus]

Otherwise there would be no need to describe the results of premature detonation, it would never happen.

The Auld Grump

It would happen if the caster tried to aim the fireball pea through something as small as a keyhole, as given in the description of fireball.

 

[Arthedain]

Just to be a bit more precise: The setting was a room with a roof of about 2 meters, thus flying etc was not possible.

The Wizard was standing behind his zombie minions, and each zombie was occupying a 5ft square. In other words, each square should have the required 1 square foot of open space. I agree that a normal crowd would cause problems, since there then would be more than one person per 5 foot square. It sortof boils down to the question: "How many people can stand before you before this becomes an issue? One? Five? Ten?

What I did (I'm the DM) last night was to rule that the wizard would have to hit the target square with a ranged touch attack (AC10), and that the creatures would provide cover (+4 AC). That worked out as an acceptable compromise in the heat of battle, but I'm not quite comfortable with it. I mean, fireball is what I would call a classic "battle spell". If it is not possible for a wizard to release it behind a wall of protecting creatures (ranks of soldiers, zombie minions, whatever), then it looses some of it's power. For example, each wizard would have to either carry a box into battle, sit on the back of a horse, or have the fly spell either memorized or on a scroll/potion.

According to the PHB, p 176, a Line of Effect is a

straight, unblocked path that indicates what a spell can effect. A line of effect is canceled by a solid barrier. It's like line of sight for ranged weapons, except that it's not blocked by fog, darkness, and other factors that limit normal sight. .... You must have a clear line of effect to the point of origin of any spell you cast, such as the centre of a fireball.

As you good folks have mentioned, a gelatinous cube would be a problem, and I agree that a dense crown (more than one medium-sized creature per 5 foot square) would "destroy" the spellcaster's line of effect. But I guess I'm in RigaMortus' camp, i.e. that it doesn't require any special attack rolls or anything. "Fire and Forget" you might say.

 

[MichaelH]

According to the RAW, the wizard has line of sight and line of effect. The fireball has no problem getting to its target.

 

[D+1]

Any opinions, or preferably, hard quotes from designers? I just read through Skip Williams' Rules on the Game, but don't feel any wiser (might have something to do with the fact that it's 6 AM in the morning, and my brain needs some sleep...)

The text you put in boldface is in the description largely to convey ONLY the fact that the fireball spell, unlike other spells, WILL detonate if the path is blocked for some reason, but the other rules of line-of-sight, and line-of-effect still remain in place so there's no reason to assume that a fireball is going to be blocked when no other spell would be in this circumstance. The circumstances where it WOULD actually prematurely detonate would be something like an invisible wall between caster and target. Other spells in that kind of circumstance would simply fail, but a fireball detonates prematurely.