DM_Blake
First Post
Spinachcat said:
Well, on the probably very rare occasion that you get such a densely packed target-rich group of badguys, then yes, the 1st level wizard will truly excel here.
I had originally assumed a burst started at the intersection of 4 squares, and if it is radius 1 it affects those 4 squares, radius 2 affects the next expansion of squares adjacent to the inner 4, and so on, just like in 3E. But others here are saying it's not the intersection, but instead use the center square plus a number of radius squares adjacent to the center square.
I won't argue that because I kinda skim around these forums and miss a lot, and haven't seen the ruling either way.
But I would suggest that in a world where wizards are walking down every street corner and adventuring in every haunted forest, ruined castle, and dank dungeon, any moster with enough intelligence to hold a sword by the unsharpened end knows better than to cluster into tight, easily scorched groups.
Such knowledge won't help a swarm of rats, or a mob of zombies, but hey, let your wizard shine once in a while...
Spinachcat said:
Realistically, in some situations, you might be correct - that horse, or any other large monster, is exposed to more of the damage so it should get damaged more.
But consider the complexity:
Now the front end of the horse and the back end must each make a saving throw for half (or no) damage/effect.
What if the front half of the horse was facing the center of the burst - does it shield the back half? Can it partially shield it if it only faces a square adjacent to the center of the burst? If partial shielding is allowed, how does it affect the saving throw or the damage applied?
Now you can get wierd effects where the front half of the horse saved, but the back half fell asleep. Awkward to figure out how to rule that for every comination of effects.
Even more awkward when it is an AE level drain ability - does the back half lose more levels than the front half?
Arguably, a 6' human takes up two squares vertically (lie him down in a bedroll at night and he takes up two squares horizontally). But a halfling doesn't. Does this mean that all your PCs have to make 2 saving throws against every monser's fireball, breath weapon, psionic attack, sleep spell, and all other AE attacks? Except halfings and dwarves, of course - they are automatically only half a susceptible to these effects as their taller comerades.
Take a real world elephant, compared to a real world sheep. The elephant takes up 4 5'x5'x5' cubes (front low, front high, rear low, rear high) - I am assuming he's only 5' wide, so maybe he is kinda young and not very broad shouldered or wide-bellied yet). The sheep takes up 1 5'x5'x5' cube. Arguably, if you engulfed each of them in a firey burst, the elephant would have much more of its meat seared in the flames than the sheep would. Arguably, it should take 4x the damage because of this. But, I bet it has way, way more than 4x the HP of that sheep. You could try it - see how many times you can shoot the sheep with a pistol before it dies, then try an elephant and see how many more bullets you need.
Compare that to D&D elephants and sheep. The HP difference is not the same ratio as the real world elephants and sheep.
In a more useful comparison, compare an orc to an ogre. We'll use 3.5 since we don't have 4e stats on those yet - the same area damage question could be asked of 3.5 game mechanics.
An orc has 1 HD, and ogre has 4 HD. 4x the HP. But, if we allow the ogre (who takes up 4 squares on a battle mat) to take 4x the damage from AE spells, then one puny little AE spell, like burning hands, could kill the orc and the ogre equally.
Your fighter has to hit the orc once kill it (assuming a good damage roll and decent STR), but has to hit that ogre at least 4 times to kill it. But your mage can kill them both with a single weak AE spell because that spell hurts the ogre 4x as much.
Do you want to put that kind of power in the hands of mages?
If you do, then you better make that ogre 10 HD to survive your wizards with burning hands. But now the fighter has to hit it 10 times.
Imagine killing a Colossal Ancient Wyrm Red Dragon with a single level 5 cold cone because that dragon is down on all 4 feet occupying 24 squares on the battle mat, taking 240d6x2 damage from a 10th level wizard casting that spell a single time.
See the problem?
Mechanically, it makes the AE effects way overpowered and really too hard to adjudicate when wierd stuff happens, like an AE level drain.
Everyone would play characters with AE attacks, or they would be wimps in battle, and all large, or larger, monters would become wimps compared to small groups of small monsters well spread out in wide-spread skirmish lines.
No, from a game mechanics POV, you have to make a 1 save, 1 effect rule regardless of how many squares a single target takes up in an AE effect.
You can even give it a (fairly weak) rationalization by saying larger creatures are more exposed, but the parts of them the blast hits first help to shelter the other parts so they get less effect, giving a net effect of 1.
