Pinpointing area spells

[BlackSeed_Vash]

Who knows Ogrork the Mighty, maybe "pull(ing) out his measuring tape" is part of the required steps to cast the spell.

 

[RigaMortus2]

I was considering implementing a new way of handling spells like Evards Tentacles, Darkness, Fireball, ect, and wanted to see what people think of this.

I use template cutouts to measure the area of effect for spells. In an attempt to speed up player decisions and to make it less lame to me, I was thinking about making players quickly point at a square on the battlemat to tell me where they want to center there spell. Then they can grab the template cutout to measure the exact radius of squares that the spell targets.

We get into situations where a caster casts the spell and all the players each take turns repositioning the template cutout trying to find the best position for the spell so none of them get hit and more NPCs are targeted. That slows down the game and is also kind of silly to me to think that the caster is able to lay down a spell to the point where it misses allies by one square and is perfectly positioned to hit enemies in all other squares.

I don't mind the player taking time to count out "20" squares ahead in an attempt to gauge it...and using this method will make it too hard to tell if the sides of the area are in/out of range of other characters.

Is this a fair way to handle this?

This is essentially what we do, or try to do. We find it more fun and exciting, YMMV. If you allowed pin-point precission every time, you would never run into the chance of hitting an ally, which may be ok for some groups, but for us, we have many memorable situations where this happened "Remember that one time we were fighting those giants, and you cast a fireball doing more damage to me than it did to the giants!" Anyway, like I said, YMMV, but our group likes those memorable scenes.

 

[Kmart Kommando]

In one game, I kept getting caught in the cleric's Sound Burst. Needless to say, I failed my save every time, and was the only one to ever do so. :\
That, however, was not a targeting error, rather it was a "well, I can't hit them if I don't hit you, and it's only 1d8 damage"

Maybe they should get time based on their Intelligence, considering smarter people could calculate faster. Good for wizards, but I guess Clerics are channeling their god, so how can they miss? And Sorcerers instinctively know where to place it. So, point and click it is.

 

[Jemal]

I've actually stopped using figs and maps. We're a little looser based on the placement now, and when someone wants to throw an AoE, they give as much specifics as they can, keeping inmind where everybody is. It's a lot closer to how the Character would have to think, instead of just counting squares or looking at the measuring tape. Usually they manage to get pretty much what they want, anyways.

 

[Infiniti2000]

While I understand the issue, I'm not sure about the solution. I really dislike the idea of making the player take some sort of timed action, because it leads to a number of OOC problems and pseudo-discrimination. The guy in my group with rheumatoid arthritis, for example, would have a MUCH harder time than the marathon runner. It also greatly helps the guy at the end of the round than the one at the beginning, because he has a lot more "time" to study the map and pre-plan, even though they both take actions at the same time. And then, you need to consider how the DM will do it.

 

[RigaMortus2]

It also greatly helps the guy at the end of the round than the one at the beginning, because he has a lot more "time" to study the map and pre-plan, even though they both take actions at the same time.

Well, this is only true at the beginning of combat when init is rolled. Once init starts, the person who went first in init has just as much time now as the last person in init to study the map and decide his action. And if they are really stumped on what they want to do, they can (and should) Delay.

I think this problem is mostly moot though, and I'll tell you why. The battlefield is ever changing. If you plan out your actions ahead of time, by the time it gets back to your turn, the battlefield will often change very drastically that it in turn changes your action. You may plan on dropping a Fireball, and by the time it gets back to you, the enemies could now be scattered, allies may be in the way, anit-magic spells may be in effect, etc.

So while it is a good idea in theory to prep ahead for your turn, it's not a sure fire solution.

 

[JiffyPopTart]

What's there to hem and haw about? I always just state "If it is possible to place the spell such that it hits X and Y but not Z, I do so; if not, I'm willing/not willing to include Z." Fast and simple.

Exactly! Do away with the template and use the eyeball. If you think a party member is a little too close tell the wizard something to the effect of "To be totally safe and not hit Fred the Fighter you have to scoot it out a bit farther, which will only get three of the trolls. If you want to get all 4 trolls you may or may not hit Fred the Fighter". Then let the wizard decide. Then if he chooses to maybe hit Fred roll whatever percent chance you think he has of hitting him behind the screen (or alternately let the player use a spellcraft check with a DC you have chosen.

Don't let the strict rules get in the way of YOUR or YOUR PLAYERS fun.

DS

 

[Victim]

This is essentially what we do, or try to do. We find it more fun and exciting, YMMV. If you allowed pin-point precission every time, you would never run into the chance of hitting an ally, which may be ok for some groups, but for us, we have many memorable situations where this happened "Remember that one time we were fighting those giants, and you cast a fireball doing more damage to me than it did to the giants!" Anyway, like I said, YMMV, but our group likes those memorable scenes.

Never have the chance of hitting an ally accidently you mean. Even with precision blasting, there are still cases when the caster decides that the benefit of hitting more enemies is worth the damage to an ally.

 

[newgrace]

This reminds me of our weekend game. Large scale battle between 2 sides. Right in the beginning one player cast evards tentacles, our main NPC that we were there to talk to charges into the enemy group, and my smartass throws out the cloudkill trying to get near our NPC, but not on him...I failed that point. But I use your idea. While our DM would probably give us the time to "pinpoint", most of us just do rough "I want the spell in this area, so start at this point thats 4 squares away".

 

[lukelightning]

I see no problem with precise positioning of area spells. I figure it's all part of the spellcaster's training. My wizard has far more knowledge about casting fireball than I do, and he would know exactly how to place it.

I think that taking away this precision unfairly limits casters. There are already so many ways that magic is limited, through saves that seem to skyrocket faster than the caster's DCs, the need for touch attacks with many spells (which is a real limit for wizards, who probably don't have precise shot), spell resistance, and stuff like that.