How wide is a "line", i.e. Lightning Bolt?
- Thread starter allenw
- Start date
Cheiromancer
Adventurer
So, now that we are all agreed, can we have a new diagram?
(I didn't want to read the nasty posts, and so I've lost the thread of the argument.)
(I didn't want to read the nasty posts, and so I've lost the thread of the argument.)
Plane Sailing
Astral Admin - Mwahahaha!
I can't help asking myself
"This simplifies things HOW?"
I don't think lightning bolt was ever a problem before (I've certainly never heard it referred to as a problem. Heck, in tens of thousands of posts on ENworld, I don't recall seeing it even mentioned). So in solving a theoretical but possibly non-existant problem, a whole bunch of spells have been declarified.
Ah well.
"This simplifies things HOW?"
I don't think lightning bolt was ever a problem before (I've certainly never heard it referred to as a problem. Heck, in tens of thousands of posts on ENworld, I don't recall seeing it even mentioned). So in solving a theoretical but possibly non-existant problem, a whole bunch of spells have been declarified.
Ah well.
The Souljourner
First Post
We used lightning bolt tuesday night and it was WAY simple. It's just this - take a string, lay it over the battle mat, any square it touches, it affects. Period.
It's awesome. Lightning bolt is now MUCH more precise. You can shoot it through a 5' hole between your friends (or even a smaller hole if you're on a weird angle), not hit either of them, and then hit a bunch of guys on the other side. It rocks. Believe me, all it is is a line... it's not nearly as complicated as it looks here.
-The Souljourner
It's awesome. Lightning bolt is now MUCH more precise. You can shoot it through a 5' hole between your friends (or even a smaller hole if you're on a weird angle), not hit either of them, and then hit a bunch of guys on the other side. It rocks. Believe me, all it is is a line... it's not nearly as complicated as it looks here.
-The Souljourner
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Caliban and Jhyrryl: Thanks for the great diagrams!
It occurs to me that I may be mistaken about a Lightning Bolt "line" being 10' wide, even though it affects a coulmun 2 squares wide. At 5' wide, if you cast it down a square-side, it fills up half of each "touched" square, affecting both (and providing conceptual justifiaction for "Reflex save for half damage). But you *can* cast it (using the PHB corner-to-corner rules) so it only affects a 5'-wide line, if you choose; if the Bolt was really 10' wide, you couldn't do that, and you could argue that you could have it affect a line *3* squares wide (all of 1, half each of the other two), which you can't.
Edited to add:
So, does this imply that Black, Blue, etc. Dragon Breath Weapon lines use the new "line" rules as well, and thus also affect a column 2 squares wide?
It occurs to me that I may be mistaken about a Lightning Bolt "line" being 10' wide, even though it affects a coulmun 2 squares wide. At 5' wide, if you cast it down a square-side, it fills up half of each "touched" square, affecting both (and providing conceptual justifiaction for "Reflex save for half damage). But you *can* cast it (using the PHB corner-to-corner rules) so it only affects a 5'-wide line, if you choose; if the Bolt was really 10' wide, you couldn't do that, and you could argue that you could have it affect a line *3* squares wide (all of 1, half each of the other two), which you can't.
Edited to add:
So, does this imply that Black, Blue, etc. Dragon Breath Weapon lines use the new "line" rules as well, and thus also affect a column 2 squares wide?
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allenw said:
A "Line" has no real width, being by definition one dimensional.
In 3.5 it just happens to affect every square the line passes through or touches (thus it can "arc" out to 7.5 feet on either side when passing diagonally through a 4-way intersection), which gives it the illusion of actual width. As you said, you can also narrow the width down to 5 feet wide by selecting the correct angle.
Don't worry about it too much, that's just the way it works now.
Wow that was actually helpful. My first read of the spell was that it could only effect a 5 ft wide area.
Ok, here is my conclusion and how it
should have been written in the PHB.
Draw a line from the casters corner to the endpoint, any square which the line passes through or touches is in the effect, the effect ends after 24 squares have been effected.
How does that sound?
Ok, here is my conclusion and how it
should have been written in the PHB.
Draw a line from the casters corner to the endpoint, any square which the line passes through or touches is in the effect, the effect ends after 24 squares have been effected.
How does that sound?
