Help with Flaming Sphere

[Aeson]

So if someone's standing on the top of a 5' square pillar, a hundred feet above the ground, and a flaming sphere jumps from another pillar 30 feet away into the square, the character gets a Reflex save. As written, if he saves, he takes no damage. Per your house rule, if he saves, he falls a hundred feet?

-Hyp.

hopefully the DM wouldn't be that much of jerk. If he has a rule he should create a situation where the rule can not apply.

 

[CM]

As a house rule, in my games we prefer to think of flaming sphere as a 1' diameter ball. A little more sane that way.

 

[Arrellion]

As I said "in theory". As the rules are written they are broken. Essentially two things
which are not allies are occupying the same space. Neither is prone. Your argument
has merit and it would be left up to the DM to make the call either to let the character
jump to the pillar the sphere just left or to even drop down along the pillar they are on.
Many possibilities IMO. To stick to the letter of the rule just because, is not a good or
fun way to play. But to lose a character by jumping off a pillar to avoid getting burned
would suck too. Thankfully that scenerio has not come up yet.

Thanks for the opinions and alternate view point.

Arrel

 

[Hypersmurf]

hopefully the DM wouldn't be that much of jerk. If he has a rule he should create a situation where the rule can not apply.

If the rule has been made, and the situation subsequently arises - not as a result of the DM being a jerk, but just because it turns out that way - you're stuck with the implications of that ruling.

Not to say that the RAW can't have unexpected results as well. But a lot of potential RAW abuses are picked up early, so DMs can think about how they want to deal with them should they ever arise...

-Hyp.

 

[Hypersmurf]

Your argument has merit and it would be left up to the DM to make the call either to let the character jump to the pillar the sphere just left...

Thirty feet is a hell of a standing jump

-Hyp.

 

[Jack Simth]

I understand where Hyp is coming from but the description reads:

"Effect: 5-ft.-diameter sphere"

So if if takes up the whole 5 ft square then how do you avoid being burned?

My group and I always play that if you make your Reflex save then you essentially
jump to the nearest available square, in theory.

Arrel

Volume of a 5-ft diameter (2.5 ft radius) sphere: 4.0/3.0 pi r^3 = 4.0/3.0 pi 2.5^3 = 65.4 ft^3
Volume of a 5-ft cube: Length^3 = 5.0^3 = 125.0 ft ^3

The sphere only takes up a little over half the volume of the square, as written.

 

[IronWolf]

Our group had some discussion on how the flaming sphere worked. We fell back to RAW despite the fact it felt odd that a character could make his reflex save and still stand in a square with a 5' sphere of flame (though the math Jack Simth posted now even clarifies that some!). We don't like house rules much and try to play by the book. Flaming Sphere is the big reason we explain the unexplained with "It's magic!"

 

[Jack Simth]

Granted, it's a rather awkward volume - the distance from the center of the cube to a far corner is....sqrt(2.5^2 + 2.5^2 + 2.5^2) = 4.3 ft (2.5 of which is flaming....) but it's something a dextrous person could manage.

 

[IronWolf]

Granted, it's a rather awkward volume - the distance from the center of the cube to a far corner is....sqrt(2.5^2 + 2.5^2 + 2.5^2) = 4.3 ft (2.5 of which is flaming....) but it's something a dextrous person could manage.

My head hurts....

 

[Aeson]

Granted, it's a rather awkward volume - the distance from the center of the cube to a far corner is....sqrt(2.5^2 + 2.5^2 + 2.5^2) = 4.3 ft (2.5 of which is flaming....) but it's something a dextrous person could manage.

Not math. I always sucked at math. If I can't count it on my fingers its too much.