Pinpointing area spells

[Tiberius]

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.

Indeed. If the lives of my friends and I depended upon me being able to bullseye a gnat with a fireball, you'd better believe I'd be out all day on the practice field with a pile of sulpher and guano.

Regarding targetting, surely the wizard player has time to count squares and such while others are taking their turns?

 

[Pyrex]

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.

That's the same assumption we use. Who's to say the wizard can't mystically 'see' the proposed boundary of the Fireball he's about to cast.

Our players are generally pretty good about lining up their shot (so to speak) before their turn, they point to an intersection and then we put down the template.

 

[Atavar]

There is an optional targeting rule someone made up (Monte Cook perhaps?) to simulate the inexact nature of targeting spells, making it a little more "realistic."

As stated above, you target a battle grid intersection as the center of an effect, not a square. However, in the optional targeting rule, you do target a square--and then you role 1d4 to determine randomly which corner of that square is the actual center of the effect. That way, a spellcaster has control over the location, but not exact precision over that control.

However, I don't think that optional rule will speed up game play. In fact, I think it would slow it down as the players now have to factor in the randomness (as well as roll another die).

Whatever makes the game most fun for everyone, I guess.

Later,

Atavar

 

[Drowbane]

Opinions follow

Well it's hard to explain over a forum.

Take the 20' radius template for example. When a fireball is laid down in the middle of a battlefield, the caster pulls out the template and starts "testing" different positions to see how he can turn or move the template around so it hits as many enemies as possible.

Which is fine.

Then another player will say, "That won't work, because my PC is in the way"...and he'll grab the template to start "helping" the caster find a better position. Then another player will say, "Oh, if you set it here you can get this extra guy here"...and he'll grab the template to show the group.

Not fine.

The simple answer is to not let anybody but the Caster touch the template. If the caster makes a bad decision, so be it. Its *his* to make. Just tell the other players to back off. Who knows, your caster-player might appreciatet his.

 

[Anthraxus]

I don't really mind other players helping target, and I haven't often seen it cause big delays.

Getting hit by a fireball and dying by friendly fire -or being damaged and subsequently taken down by a monster because the wizard can't target his spell correctly- isn't very "fun". :\

Maybe just letting them know that they would help by speeding up the targeting a little.

 

[pallandrome]

In my campaign, you get one minute to decide your character's action. If no decision is made, then no action is taken. I think that is more than fair for a 6 second round. That being said, I consider a large portion of wizard training to be learning the geometry of spells. None of this "randomizing where the spell hit" nonsense for me, nossir!

 

[Paul Grogan]

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.

Other people have probably said this already, but no, no, no is my opinion. The reason - The player is not a mage. The player is probably not as intelligent as the mage and certainly doesnt spend 24 hours a day being a mage. What I am getting at is that the character is far far better at doing this than the player is. Give the player the time to place his spell properly as the character would know what he was doing.

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

I see your point, but sometimes this is essential. You need to allow other players to help out sometimes, especially if the player actually needs help. Not everyone is as good at playing the game and getting things like this correct. Does this mean they cant play a character with area effect spells? No. It just means that when casting them, the player may need some help.

I think all you need to do here is to say "Look guys, can you speed up this a bit as it is really slowing the game down.

 

[Pagan priest]

Gaaa. You young whippersnappers don't know just how easy things are these days. Why, back in 1st edition, a fireball spell always covered its full 33'000 cubic foot volume. If that meant it was going to travel 330' down a 10' x 10' corridor well then that's just what happened.

I remember there was a game one time, the DM was a real stickler for the rules. Insisted that the Magic User (none of these namby little sorcerers, too dumb to memorize their spells for us) declare the target location for spells without measuring. Lemme tell you, we were facing a whole slew of bad guys spilling out of the mouth of a cave as we were arrayed around them in a rough semi circle. Rough mind you, noone had measured out the a fare-thee-well where their character was going to stand. My initiative came around after they were out and almost upon us and I knew I needed to blast a bunch of them with a fireball before one of them had time to kill the princess we were there to rescue. I looked at the board and the figures and said "right there". Well, the DM got out his calculator and figured out how much of the fireball was outside the cave, and figured out the radius of a quarter sphere with that volume, pulled out his measuring tape, and found out that I had killed every one of those no good stinking varmints without even singing the toes of any of the party members.

And since I killed them all, the XP were all mine!!!

Erm, what was the topic of this here thread?

 

[Tiberius]

Gaaa. You young whippersnappers don't know just how easy things are these days. Why, back in 1st edition, a fireball spell always covered its full 33'000 cubic foot volume. If that meant it was going to travel 330' down a 10' x 10' corridor well then that's just what happened.

Even better when cast outside, as the volume increased to be measured in cubic yards!

Form-fitting fireballs were nice, but I was always a big fan of the bouncing lightning bolts. Great for people standing in front of walls.

 

[Pagan priest]

Even better when cast outside, as the volume increased to be measured in cubic yards!

Form-fitting fireballs were nice, but I was always a big fan of the bouncing lightning bolts. Great for people standing in front of walls.

Ah, but the area of effect did not change in size... it was still feet, not yards.

Bouncing lightnig bolts I once had a dungeon where the wizard in charge had carefuly built the corridors to bounce the bolts at invading PC's before they even knew he was around, and before they could do anything back at him.