Force Orb: Secondary attacks on a miss?

[small pumpkin man]

It's not like the area effect doesn't require it's own attack roll, and it's not like it does significantly more damage than the at-will area effect the Wizard already has. I'm seeing acceptable extrapolation of how the power's supposed to work, not cheese.

 

[The B#]

not only that, but a force orb is an encounter power. Hitting the ground for splash damage is a sub-optimal way of using it, though, it can definitely be useful. Wizards get one per-encounter. Let them use it how they see fit.

 

[abeattie]

not only that, but a force orb is an encounter power. Hitting the ground for splash damage is a sub-optimal way of using it, though, it can definitely be useful. Wizards get one per-encounter. Let them use it how they see fit.

maybe a good way to take out some minions?

 

[DreamChaser]

And it's not like the ground or ceiling have high Reflexes either
I mean, we're not playing WoW! Nor a boardgame! I CAN target the ground if I WANT to!

LOL What I mean is for the "strict interpretation" group who don't consider the ground to be an object, there is no need to fudge. A rock (pebble) that happens to be on the ground is definitely an object, whether the DM in question rules that the ground is or not.

DC

 

[Jack99]

I would definitely allow my players to target the ground with this spell.

 

[FireLance]

I would definitely allow my players to target the ground with this spell.

What if a player decides to attack the darkness?

 

[Jack99]

What if a player decides to attack the darkness?

If you read the description of the power, it is quite clear that the orb shatters upon impact. So if a player wanted to target the darkness, the spell would obviously either not work (since darkness is hardly an object) or just shoot through and fizzle out, or whatnot.

 

[fuzzlewump]

Make a decision as it comes up:

While I think that if this was meant to be a straight up area of effect spell, it would have been described as having a 'burst 1' inside of the stat block. However, the extra mechanic of it having to hit something and explode is a different story. You know, I'm reminded of in 3E, the fireball spell is described as a tiny red pearl that extends from your finger and blossoms into a fireball upon impact. This means if something invisible is in the way of your target, or as the book says if you hit the sides of the arrow slit you're shooting through, the fireball explodes.

This is essentially how force orb works. If the person your shooting at avoids the red pearl, or the force orb, there's no detonation and it continues on its vector path. So, there's nothing cheesy about aiming the fireball for the ground underneath the kobolds, in order to avoid the miss chance right? Right. Given, force orb isn't described in that same light, but I believe this is due to the cutting down of extraneous information in stat blocks on a whole.

This leads me to a question to someone experienced with house rulings: a wizard is inside of a room with a door that leads into a corridor that extends directly outwards. Then the door is busted down and behind it is an entire hallway full of orcs in a straight path. If the wizard quickly fires a force orb in this straight path, and fails to hit the first orc due to his good reflex defense, what happens? In a cinematic approach, it's easy to imagine the first orc, or maybe even the first few dodging out the way and then hitting the 3rd or nth or whatever. But from a rules standpoint how should that work? Should it work at all? I would think that the orb would continue down the hallway until reaching its peak range with the attack on the first orc applying against all orcs in the hallway. For instance, if the wizard throws a particularly bad Force Orb on an attack of 9, all of the orcs are able to step aside. However, on a roll of 16 only the lieutenants are able to step aside and a minion is struck behind them. I thought about orcs behind the first getting a reflex defense bonus depending on far they were from the initial target the of the spell, but that raises the question of should the initial target receive a bonus if he is more than X squares away from the wizard. Reflex defense based on amount of time received to respond to danger? Does the wizard's attack decide the accuracy and speed of the force orb? Oh lordie lordie. But, if any such house rules exist for spells like these, specifically about targets in a line, should any ranged attack work the same way?

An example I'd find easier to tackle would be the room and the door but the hallway outside is huddled against the outside walls of the room instead of extending outward. So, once the door is bust down, the wizard can see clearly an orc with a wall directly behind him. The Wizard tosses a force orb but narrowly misses, so the force orb hits the wall and detonates, meaning another attack against the same orc's reflex as well as against the reflex of adjacent orcs. What do you guys think?

(Edit: couple of typos.)

 

[Voss]

See, this is the problem. The power is designed to do nothing if it misses, otherwise it *would* have a burst effect or a Miss: <blah, blah> entry. Not explode and have an effect anyway.

Partly its a matter of once you open that door, you have to open to everything- does the fighter's cleave effect now affect the primary target if he misses? Can eyebite blind the target but deal no damage? Do arrows that miss continue to travel and potentially hit something else?

I think you have to take the design into account. And force orb isn't really designed as a burst, which is what targetting the ground is essentially doing. It makes the spell quite a bit better than it was. You can be more flexible about blowing up groups.

 

[AZRogue]

See, this is the problem. The power is designed to do nothing if it misses, otherwise it *would* have a burst effect or a Miss: <blah, blah> entry. Not explode and have an effect anyway.

Partly its a matter of once you open that door, you have to open to everything- does the fighter's cleave effect now affect the primary target if he misses? Can eyebite blind the target but deal no damage? Do arrows that miss continue to travel and potentially hit something else?

I think you have to take the design into account. And force orb isn't really designed as a burst, which is what targetting the ground is essentially doing. It makes the spell quite a bit better than it was. You can be more flexible about blowing up groups.

I think Voss is right. This is an example where doing what makes "real world" sense isn't, probably, the best thing. The powers are designed from a gamist stand point and you need to consider the effects that such a ruling would have on the GAME before you consider whether it makes sense.

And, in this case, I think allowing the spell to do damage on a miss, when it doesn't specifically say that it does, is making the spell more powerful than intended. So, no.