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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Ariosto" data-source="post: 5590080" data-attributes="member: 80487">It is clear to me.It is also, in my experience, clear to most DMs including those who disagree with me as to whether the spell is one of those classed as Death Magic.Any use of language other than simple and direct correspondence (which might as well be utterly arbitrary for all the inference it practically demands) -- "This thing uses X", which is how the save categories are in fact used in the 3.5 PHB -- though, is subject to potential ambiguity. The bottom line is that Mr. Gygax did not think it worth the while to make an utterly unambiguous list of this save for that particular spell. In my experience, old-time D&Ders generally found it quite natural and acceptable that this should vary from campaign to campaign.It apparently is not so acceptable among at least the forum-posting enthusiasts of WotC-D&D. What a firm offers puts a selection pressure on the composition of its customer base even before the customer base puts a recursive pressure on the nature of the product.Many people who wanted more clear-cut rules in the early 1980s had options delivering just that. I don't know how many were not presented in the market with choices besides D&D, but I know that such a lack was not in evidence anywhere I went.One reason I would not is that the subject is in fact not, as you claim, "turned to dust". Is that perhaps another reference to "2e"? The 1st ed. PHB clearly stipulates, "This spell causes matter to vanish."Now I think you are really missing what ought to be your own point:*** In 3e it's clearly a Fort save, as that is what is listed in the PHB. *** End of story, eh?Such specification is in old D&D the exception rather than the rule. I was speaking from my own experience as to the guesswork necessary for 3e without looking it up. The reason I guessed Reflex for fireball was the 1st ed. AD&D spell description, which refers to targets that "manage to dodge, fall flat or roll aside".There is actually no such explicit warrant in the 3.5 PHB description, and the treatment of positions of figures in those rules hardly encourages the thought of "dodging" a 40' diameter blast centered on such a position. Wall of fire in 3.5 permits no saving throw, even though it is treated as a line with effectively zero horizontal depth. (I refer here not to those figures that pass through it but those treated as if they have passed through it because of its positioning.)</blockquote>

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