Official Ruling on Stinking Cloud?

[SlyFlourish]

but

"To reiterate: If you're in the cloud, every part of your square touches an effect that blocks line of sight, so you cannot be seen by anyone. And every corner of your square touches an effect that blocks line of sight, so no one can be see by you. Touching is all that's required to disqualify a candidate-line from being disqualified. And if all candidate-lines are disqualified? Can't be seen."

If this is the case, why does wall of fog specifically say that it conceals and why would the stinking cloud be MORE effective because it says nothing?

 

[Tony Vargas]

But why shouldn't it have anything to do with the letter of the rules?

Because I was just making an observation. The letter of the rules can be just as counterintuitive or nonsensical as the writers care to make them, or the fans care to interpret them.

Anyway I think the point is that the rules are ambiguous enough that any DM can make whatever ruling they want on it for now, which is what we should do.

Sure, and If you're going to make a house ruling, it might as well be one that makes sense and is balanced, rather than one that is absurd and overpowering.

 

[Tony Vargas]

Corner B and C are touching the edge of the cloud. According to 273, touching such an effect is enough to negate them as candidates for line of sight.

I don't quite buy it. That way lies the madness of 3e, in which a 5' wide corridor provided cover to everyone in it. For that matter, under this logic, a 5' wide corridor blocks line of sight for everyone in it. Think about it. Walls block line of sight. All 4 corners of a square in 5' wide corridor 'touch' a wall - ergo, every line to any of those four corners 'touches' a wall and is thus blocked.

I think the /line/, not the corner at the end of the line, is the thing that has to 'touch' a blocking object/effect to count.

 

[DracoSuave]

"To reiterate: If you're in the cloud, every part of your square touches an effect that blocks line of sight, so you cannot be seen by anyone. And every corner of your square touches an effect that blocks line of sight, so no one can be see by you. Touching is all that's required to disqualify a candidate-line from being disqualified. And if all candidate-lines are disqualified? Can't be seen."

If this is the case, why does wall of fog specifically say that it conceals and why would the stinking cloud be MORE effective because it says nothing?

Because saying something explicitly conceals makes for an exception to the 'no line of sight' deal?

As for the 5' hall wide hall deal, said walls obviously do not block your vision, so they do not break candidate lines for line of sight. I would argue, however, that an effect that -explicitly- blocks line of sight as one of its -stated effects- will, in fact, block line of sight for anyone inside it. I know it does, because IT SAYS SO IN THE GORAM POWER!

 

[Harr]

PHB Page 280 (rules for Cover) says "(A line isn’t blocked if it runs along the edge of an obstacle’s or an enemy’s square.)" So there's yet another messy thing which could go either way.

Anyway you know what I'm gonna just save myself a whole heap of headache and go with Tony's interpretations from his first posts. In my mind it's insane for mist and smells to be using line-of-sight rules insted of obscuring rules, but you get what you get, and it's true that if you're gonna be forced to house-rule then you might as well rule something that makes sense, and as much as I want the be a "rules guy", Tony's stuff does make sense

 

[DracoSuave]

Stinking cloud explicitly uses the words 'line-of-sight' preceded by 'blocks.'

Why would you not use the line-of-sight rules on an effect that explicitly mentions line-of-sight? Do you not use damage rules on effects that use damage, or saving throw rules with powers that use saving throws?

In my head, it doesn't make sense that an effect designed to -explicitly- block line-of-sight does not, in fact block line-of-sight.

Using cover and concealment rules make sense -if- you've established you can have line-of-sight. But -first- you have to ask the question 'Do I actually see this guy?' and if the answer is 'no' then the cover and concealment rules never need to come into play.

You first check the line-of-effect rules to determine if you have line-of-effect from the point of origin to the target. If you don't, then you might have trouble affecting the target at all.

You then use the line-of-sight rules to determine if you do, in fact, have line-of-sight. If these are failed, you cannot see the target, and the 'cannot see the target' rules apply.

Then you check to see if it has cover, if-and-only-if you have line-of-effect. Cover is a barrier interposed between the point of origin and the object. This is not the same as line-of-sight and has nothing to do with sight at all. Cover is an object that gets in the way of possible -lines-of-effect.- Cover is measured from the point of origin, not from the user of the power. For Melee and Ranged attacks, those are one and the same, but for Close and Area effects it might not be. The cover rules have buttkiss to do with seeing the target.

Then, you check for concealment, the other sight related thing. Total Concealment is simply 'you can't see the target'. Because you've already checked for line-of-sight you know you can't see the target, and thusly total concealment applies. Otherwise you'd check for obscured terrain/squares, which needn't apply in the case of stinking cloud, unlike with wall of fog which explicitly says otherwise. Concealment doesn't use lines-of-effect, candidacy or anything else. All it counts is if you can't be seen, and then the terrain you're in, depending on if he is adjacent.

The rules actually make sense if you apply them in the right order, and in the right situation.

 

[SlyFlourish]

How do we know they didn't mean that the WHOLE CLOUD blocked line of sight? After all it clearly states that " The burst creates a zone of poisonous vapor that blocks line of sight until the end of your next turn. "

This could mean that it blocks line of sight to anything on the OTHER SIDE of the cloud but not to objects within the cloud.

This is why I'd rather stick to "each full square of the cloud blocks line of sight" which allows for cover or partial cover given the circumstances.

 

[Turtlejay]

Also please remember that your character is taking up a 5'x5' square. Meaning, on average, even if they are adjacent to someone they are 5' away. Measure it out. It is not hard to imagine a magica effect making it hard to see that far away.

I frankly don't see what is so hard to swallow about the RAW interpretation of this spell. It is a dense cloud of poison. While you are in it your visibility is less than 5'. Done.

Jay

 

[Syrsuro]

Line of sight is blocked by any and all squares, so someone adjacent to the cloud cannot see someone in the cloud (and vice-versa).

However, if they are aware that they are there, they can still attack them with a -5 for total concealment.

Carl

 

[SlyFlourish]

Here's what I got from the CS folks at Wizards:

"As per the normal concealment rules, a creature adjacent to another in the cloud has normal concealment (-2 to attacks). If there is at least once space between them, it is total concealment. Being on an edge space within the cloud is normal concealment from a creature outside the cloud (2 corners without blocked line of sight, again, as per the concealment rules.)"