Repel Metal and Ranged attacks

[Demon Knight]

Just trying to get some opinions on a particularly controversial issue in a D&D game I am involved in.

A druid casts a Repel Metal and Stone spell, designating its path (for example, waves pushing from south to north). Then proceeds to enter into the area of the spell to protect herself from the fighter in big metal armor.

The fighter moves directly south of the druid, pulls out his bow and starts firing off arrows at the druid.

Here comes the controversy.

The druid's player argues that the spell would disrupt the path of the arrows, and completely miss her character.

The fighter's player argues that, since the arrows are already headed straight north, the spell merely pushes them north, still hitting her character.

If anyone could offer some insight to this argument, it would be most helpful.

 

[AuraSeer]

So... the druid cast the spell northward, and then moved north to stand in the area. The fighter is standing beyond the south end, outside the spell range. And he's firing normal metal-tipped arrows, which are "repelled" north, toward the druid. Is that correct?

The spell would change the arrows' flight paths, but it wouldn't stop them short. I'd allow the fighter to still shoot at the druid, but at a very hefty circumstance penalty, something like -15 or -20. Even though the fighter is at the "wrong end" of the effect, it's still an 8th-level spell, which is a pretty powerful thing.

 

[shilsen]

Of course, if you were a truly mean DM, you could rule that the arrows hold their course and the spell simply increases their speed, giving them a bonus to hit and damage

Actually I like Auraseer's solution, although I'd give a much lower penalty to hit (probably a -5).

 

[Gaiden]

If I were DMing this game it would come down to the fighter's range. If he was within pointblank range I would in fact rule that the arrows flew faster and hit harder as was suggested by shilsen. It just makes sense that a N-->S flux affecting a projectile traveling N-->S would enhance it. In fact this might be an interesting innovation a Druid could use offensively with Archer allies.

However, this relies on the arrows path being in a relatively straight line (relative to the curvature of the earth). I would imagine the field's direction of repel metal would travel along the curvature of the earth and thus disrupt an arrow coming into the field at an angle.

So it would seem to make sense that the field would have the affect of increasing the efficacy of a PBS shot and decreasing the efficacy of longer ranged shots. When firing in the direction of the field that is.

Thus, perhaps a circumstances bonus of +1/+1 at point blank range and an equivalent penalty for each range increment. That would seem fair to me.

What I want to know is how the fighter knew how to move directly south of the druid - aka - how did a fighter know that the druid cast repel metal and how did he know how the spell worked?

Second question is how exactly did the fighter know exactly which position was directly south of the wizard? Even if it was in a field with the sun overhead midmorning or midafternoon, it still seems suspect that the fighter could have chosen the spot exactly south of the druid. Unless he had some sort of compass, I would have ruled that he could approximate the spot but not get it exactly. He would then have to fire a couple of times before he got the exact spot.

Again, as a qualification, the only way the above bonuses would at all apply would be if the archer was directly (exactly) south of the druid. If there were any angles at all involved with the shot I would probably incur on top of all of the bonuses/penalties an additional -5 - -10 to the shot (where the archer is still South of the druid, but not exactly south). Moreover, I would probably have the first shot fired by the archer (if at an angle and unaware of the spell) automatically miss as he cannot account for the other forces at work.