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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Jhyrryl" data-source="post: 1047873" data-attributes="member: 6406">I'm trying to keep this in the realm of a basic geometry that's available to the masses, namely, Euclidean plane geometry.  I highly doubt that the designers of D&D ever ventured outside their knowledge of that geometry in trying to come up with rules for a battlemat.  Discussions of abstract constructs like half-planes (by which I assume you mean projective planes) just doesn't make sense at the gaming table.  <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f642.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":)" title="Smile    :)"  data-smilie="1"data-shortname=":)" />From that perspective, the set of points that define the area of a polygon, like a square, include the points that define the shape and position of that polygon.  In the diagram below, all four squares are adjacent to each other.  Square 1's area and position is defined by the points A, B, D, and E.  Square 2's area and position is defined by the points B, C, E, and F.The definitions of squares 1 and 2 share a common line segment that runs between points B and E.  Because all the points along that segment exist in the set of points that define the area of both squares 1 and 2, a spell's line effect that is designated to run along such a segment, must affect both squares.Likewise, the definitions of all four squares in the diagram share a common point, E.  That point is within the set of points that define the area of all four squares, and as such, a spell's line effect that is designated to pass through that point, must affect all four adjacent squares.<img src="http://www.mooville.net/mike/adj_squares.jpg" alt="" class="fr-fic fr-dii fr-draggable " data-size="" style="" />That all said, I almost agree with you when you state that a rule that relies on the boundedness definition of shape shouldn't be in the rules.  On the other hand, I completely understand where WotC was coming from in make their definition of a line effect work this way.  With this definition, it's very clear what happens at an intersection between squares, because it's the same thing that happens when the line effect runs entirely between rows of squares: it affects the squares on either side.Had they defined the effect to run from the center of your square, there would have been much more ambiguity about what happens at an intersection.  Not only that, but by defining the line effect to originate at the center of a square (and presumable ignoring that starting square), the effect becomes much more weak than other spell areas.  Generally speaking, increasing the length of a line has nowhere near the power increase of increasing the radius of a sphere when you are talking about damage dealing spells.  I think the decision that was made was well thought out from a game mechanics perspective.  It's going to be extremely easy to use, and it brings the usefulness of lightning bolt back up to that of a 3rd level spell when compared to fireball.  In 3.0, the only use for lightning bolt was to have something you could use to damage creatures that are immune to fire.  Now it's going to have enough significant tactical value on the battlefield for spellcasters to seriously consider keeping their 3rd level loadouts mixed.But, I do think WotC dropped the ball in with regard to describing the effect.  They should have anticipated from their own play-testing that some clarification would be desired by people with regard to what constitutes "going through" a square.  This is the real problem: WotC has its own definitions for the battlemat.  Those definitions and the implications hidden in them, should have been spelled out (and likely will be in the miniatures rulebook).  Explicit knowledge of geometry (in whatever format), should not have been assumed on the part of the designers, just like in story writing, where the author should never assume anything about a reader's knowledge of an environment, history, or other critical aspect of the story's setting.</blockquote>

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