LoE, LoS necessary for shape spells?

[Pielorinho]

Last session began with our opening a dungeon door to see a room full of vampiric cultists worshipping whatever they worshipped. I (playing a Druid 16) joked about the "Caution, do not use firestorm on premises!" sign above the doorway, and then got ready to firestorm the lot o' them.

Thing is, a lot of them were out of sight, given where I was standing: I knew the room extended to either side of the door, but the wall blocked them. I decided that the wall probably blocked LoE and LoS, preventing me from filling those unseen 10' cubes with 10' cubes of firestorm, so I moved into the room, and by then, it just seemed like another spell would be more useful.

But I wonder whether I was right. When you're dealing with a shapeable spell, do you need to be able to see all the areas that you want to fill with the spell? Do you need to have line of effect to all the areas? Or do you just need to have LoE to one cube and have everything else be contiguous to that one?

Daniel

 

[Felix]

If it were a burst or a spread, then no, you wouldn't need to have LoE or LoS; you just need them for the point in space you're casting the spell at and the burst will spread on its own.

But for shapable spells that affect multiple 10x10 squares, I'd think that you couldn't affect squares you can't see; how do you know that square isn't solid wall? Since you are placing each square of effect independently of the other squares (save that often they must be contiguous) each square of effect needs its own LoE and LoS.

EDIT:

Well, maybe not LoE...

If there were a Wall of Force

_____________XXXX

And you had LoE to the two "X" squares just past the end of it, but only LoS through the Wall to the other two "X" squares, I would allow you to Firestorm those four squares. Hmmm....

 

[HeapThaumaturgist]

If they have to be contiguous I'd say that as long as you have LOS/LOE to one corner of one square of any 10'x10' block you can set that block.

--fje

 

[Pielorinho]

From the SRD's section on LoE:

You must have a clear line of effect to any target that you cast a spell on or to any space in which you wish to create an effect.

That reads pretty clearly to me that a shapeable effect must have LoE to each 10' cube within it. Guess I shoulda looked it up first!

Daniel