RPG Writing and Design Needs a Paradigm Shift

[kenada]

You could, and that would allow for multiple options which - in this case anyway - exist:

You need line of vision AND line of effect
You need line of vision but NOT line of effect (if you can see the target point you're good, even if there's a transparent obstruction in the way)
You need line of effect but NOT line of vision (you can cast without seeing or even having a target point as long as there's nothing in the way)
You need NEITHER line of effect nor line of vision (you can cast into an unseen space, behind a wall, into the ground, etc.)

I imagine myself as a wizard with my staff and pointy hat, but the hat is too big and falls down over my eyes. What spells can I cast? Not many come to mind. Even teleport requires me to see where I’m going. I guess I can find familiar and use its eyes, but that’s not an example of the third case.

I’m not trying to be flippant. This is a situation that can be solved as the designer. One can define a range type for that effect, but in doing so, I want to imagine myself as the character in the game world, so I can convey it using language that would make sense as the character and to the reader having to interpret it.

The third of these is what always causes confusion, in that using "line of sight" terminology incorrectly implies you can't cast most spells while in darkness, or while blinded.

It seems rather explicit in 5e that if you must target a creature “that you can see within range”, being blinded or in darkness would preclude casting a spell with that requirement. I’m not following how the terminology is being used incorrectly. The notation I’m suggesting wouldn’t change that. The only difference it’s standardized and presented in such a way to make it easy for the reader to scan when reading an effect’s description.

If I (as the designer) don’t want blindness to inhibit an effect with a RANGE, I can define it in such a way to do exactly that. I could say that blindness imposes a penalty, requires a check, etc on a RANGE- or SIGHT-based attack. Since those things are standard terms, there should be little confusion over when that should apply.

My spell write-ups are in most cases long enough already, as I try to incorporate rulings, interactions with other spells, precedents, and so forth established over decades of play. They don't need the extra word count I saved by adding the L component (which is defined once, along with V, S, and M, in a separate 'introduction to spells' page).

I’m certainly not suggesting rewriting what you have if it works for you! It just seemed like a very familiar solution. Adding it as another property lets you know at a glance something you consider important. It’s similar to what @AbdulAlhazred has been saying about capturing things like damage.

I’m generally erring more on the side of notation in the description for aesthetic reasons and also because I’m exploring ideas for my homebrew system. The format I posted in post #44 is highly WIP and not really meant for consumption. If I’m going to have to do the work of writing up and laying things out anyway, how should I like to do that? I appreciate the conversations I’ve had with people and the explorations of ideas for helping me work that out.

 

[kenada]

4e handles all of this in standard rules text. There's even a general class of powers which have a different rule (keyword teleport). A few exceptions may also be present, though I can't think of one. Such exceptions normally show up in specific blocks labeled 'special' or similar.

Teleportation was the one that came to mind, but teleport in 5e requires you to see where you’re going. However, dimension door doesn’t, so I guess my hypothetical wizard self can do that for a bit (though it doesn’t appear to care about line of effect to your chosen destination, so it’s still not an example of case #3).

If this is such a really special case, then it might just be prudent to rely on the fact the effect is written out to say something like: You <do a thing to a target> WITHIN X. HOWEVER, if there is anything directly between you and the target, you have to <take some countermeasure> or <bad things happen>. It wouldn’t be worth standardizing something like that if it’s really just a one-off situation. That’s something PF2 might have overdone a bit.

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

Teleportation was the one that came to mind, but teleport in 5e requires you to see where you’re going. However, dimension door doesn’t, so I guess my hypothetical wizard self can do that for a bit (though it doesn’t appear to care about line of effect to your chosen destination, so it’s still not an example of case #3).

If this is such a really special case, then it might just be prudent to rely on the fact the effect is written out to say something like: You <do a thing to a target> WITHIN X. HOWEVER, if there is anything directly between you and the target, you have to <take some countermeasure> or <bad things happen>. It wouldn’t be worth standardizing something like that if it’s really just a one-off situation. That’s something PF2 might have overdone a bit.

Yeah, in 4e teleport requires LOS but not LOE, so a wall of force won't stop teleports, but Stinking Cloud will. You also can't teleport into complete darkness. Normal rules for ranged powers is the opposite, you need LOE, but lack of LOS just means your target is unseen and you attack with disadvantage, though you also have to designate the space you are attacking so you may miss clean. That gets us into the perception rules though, which are hard to parse.

 

[Lanefan]

I imagine myself as a wizard with my staff and pointy hat, but the hat is too big and falls down over my eyes.

The most common cases where this comes up are when the caster is in a Darkness effect, or has been blinded by something e.g. sand in the eyes or a Blindness spell, or is intentionally trying to cast in the dark so as not to give away her presence any more than she has to.

What spells can I cast? Not many come to mind. Even teleport requires me to see where I’m going. I guess I can find familiar and use its eyes, but that’s not an example of the third case.

Nope - read it again.

Teleport only requires you to be able to see any other creatures you're taking with you, or if teleporting an object, the object. Your destination can be anywhere on the same plane that is known to you and doesn't have to be within your range of sight.

Whcih means, as I read it anyway, if you're only teleporting yourself you could cast it while blind.

I’m not trying to be flippant. This is a situation that can be solved as the designer. One can define a range type for that effect, but in doing so, I want to imagine myself as the character in the game world, so I can convey it using language that would make sense as the character and to the reader having to interpret it.

Same here, I think we're just approaching it from different directions.

It seems rather explicit in 5e that if you must target a creature “that you can see within range”, being blinded or in darkness would preclude casting a spell with that requirement. I’m not following how the terminology is being used incorrectly.

Fireball requires line of sight but I should still be able to cast one if I'm blind or I can't otherwise see what I'm aiming at, e.g. I cast it at the footsteps I hear approaching in the darkness beyond what my light source reveals. I just might not necessarily hit those footsteps. It's the line of sight terminology that confuses here when what's really meant is line of effect i.e. no obstructions in the way.

This is perhaps more intuitive for me as I require an aiming roll for any ranged AoE spells anyway; adding a penalty for being blind or for casting into darkness is trivial.

Also, what if a caster is or has become inherently blind due to either player choice during char-gen or a mishap while adventuring?

The notation I’m suggesting wouldn’t change that. The only difference it’s standardized and presented in such a way to make it easy for the reader to scan when reading an effect’s description.

I use lines above the write-up for: casting time, duration, range, area of effect, save, components, spell book pages, and whether a roll to hit or aim is required. That covers 90+% of what gets looked during play; the full write-ups usually only get read when someone's deciding whether to learn a spell, or if something unusual comes up during play.

I also keyword whether a spell is "area" or "targeted", as in Range: 10' indoors, 30' outdoors (targeted). Area spells always require an aiming roll, targeted ones usually (but not always) don't.

I’m generally erring more on the side of notation in the description for aesthetic reasons and also because I’m exploring ideas for my homebrew system. The format I posted in post #44 is highly WIP and not really meant for consumption. If I’m going to have to do the work of writing up and laying things out anyway, how should I like to do that?

Me, I try to put the basics in the table and leave rulings and description (if any) for the write-up. An example:

Alarm (MU-1)

Range: 20 (targeted) Area of Effect: up to 20 square feet / level Duration: 10 minutes / level + 1d2 hours Casting time: 1 round Roll to hit or aim: no Saving throw: none Components: VSML Spell book pages: 4 ​

​

Causes an area e.g. floor, doorway, stair, etc. to ring loudly if contacted or passed through by any living being larger than a normal rat. Ringing audible to 60'; less if doors or walls in the way, and lasts for a segment. Invisible beings will trigger but flying, ethereal, etc. will not. Silence on area will temporarily negate this spell; if Alarm is triggered ringing will not sound but if not triggered spell resumes normal function after Silence ends. A Bard can negate ringing but only if ready and waiting to do so. Material components are a tiny bell and some very fine wire, both reuseable.​

 

[Lanefan]

Yeah, in 4e teleport requires LOS but not LOE, so a wall of force won't stop teleports, but Stinking Cloud will.

Does 4e really limit the range of Teleport that harshly? In every other edition you can go anywhere on the same plane regardless of what's in the way, as long as your intended arrival point is itself clear of obstruction (though you could still arrive in the middle of a Stinking Cloud).

Or are you thinking of shorter-range spells e.g. Dimension Door or (Bowgentle's) Fleeting Journey?

 

[kenada]

The most common cases where this comes up are when the caster is in a Darkness effect, or has been blinded by something e.g. sand in the eyes or a Blindness spell, or is intentionally trying to cast in the dark so as not to give away her presence any more than she has to.

It was an attempt at humor to set up a hypothetical for the sake of discussion. I also wanted to say I was looking at things from the point of the character in the game world.

Nope - read it again.

Teleport only requires you to be able to see any other creatures you're taking with you, or if teleporting an object, the object. Your destination can be anywhere on the same plane that is known to you and doesn't have to be within your range of sight.

Whcih means, as I read it anyway, if you're only teleporting yourself you could cast it while blind.

That’s what I get for scanning! If only there were a way to flag the important bits.

Same here, I think we're just approaching it from different directions.

Sure, though I seem to be coming from a different direction from many people in this thread.

Fireball requires line of sight but I should still be able to cast one if I'm blind or I can't otherwise see what I'm aiming at, e.g. I cast it at the footsteps I hear approaching in the darkness beyond what my light source reveals. I just might not necessarily hit those footsteps. It's the line of sight terminology that confuses here when what's really meant is line of effect i.e. no obstructions in the way.

This is perhaps more intuitive for me as I require an aiming roll for any ranged AoE spells anyway; adding a penalty for being blind or for casting into darkness is trivial.

Also, what if a caster is or has become inherently blind due to either player choice during char-gen or a mishap while adventuring?

What I’m proposing is meant to substitute as a replacement for the boilerplate language used by 5e. The issue here is more with how 5e defines many effects as requiring line of sight. I don’t think having a standard notation would preclude what you want to do. You could say that not having sight on a RANGE X effect adds a factor to the difficulty, requires a check, or imposes some other cost on the spell. That seems reasonable.

I use lines above the write-up for: casting time, duration, range, area of effect, save, components, spell book pages, and whether a roll to hit or aim is required. That covers 90+% of what gets looked during play; the full write-ups usually only get read when someone's deciding whether to learn a spell, or if something unusual comes up during play.

I also keyword whether a spell is "area" or "targeted", as in Range: 10' indoors, 30' outdoors (targeted). Area spells always require an aiming roll, targeted ones usually (but not always) don't.

See below for an attempt at writing up Smite from post #44 in the format I’ve been discussing. Every spell has an aspected element (earth, fire, wind, water, lightning, ice, light, death) and a rank. Costs are standardized by rank, but I include it anyway for reference. Those are up in the “chrome” with the name of the spell since everything has those. The rest of the spell’s information is in the description with formatting used to aid scanning.

Me, I try to put the basics in the table and leave rulings and description (if any) for the write-up. An example:

Alarm (MU-1)

Range: 20 (targeted) Area of Effect: up to 20 square feet / level Duration: 10 minutes / level + 1d2 hours Casting time: 1 round Roll to hit or aim: no Saving throw: none Components: VSML Spell book pages: 4 ​

​

Causes an area e.g. floor, doorway, stair, etc. to ring loudly if contacted or passed through by any living being larger than a normal rat. Ringing audible to 60'; less if doors or walls in the way, and lasts for a segment. Invisible beings will trigger but flying, ethereal, etc. will not. Silence on area will temporarily negate this spell; if Alarm is triggered ringing will not sound but if not triggered spell resumes normal function after Silence ends. A Bard can negate ringing but only if ready and waiting to do so. Material components are a tiny bell and some very fine wire, both reuseable.​

This is the reworked Smite. I bounced it off the cleric player in my game, and he described it as more verbose, but appropriately so.

A bit of background on attack resolution. All rolls are 2d6 + method + approach. For an attack (per Melee Attack and Missile Attack), the method is your proficiency, and the approach is defined by the particular attack action (Strength for a Melee Attack and Dexterity for a Missile Attack). Armor typically provides mitigation (i.e., damage reduction) but it may also provide a dodge bonus. Since Smite is a spell, its damage has the same type as the spell’s aspect. Common armor does not usually provide mitigation against elemental damage. That’s the advantage of casting over using a weapon, but MP is limited and not easily recovered (either during a weekly downtime activity or by consuming an MP potion, which restores 1d6 MP and causes you to gain 1 stress).

 

[darkbard]

Does 4e really limit the range of Teleport that harshly? In every other edition you can go anywhere on the same plane regardless of what's in the way, as long as your intended arrival point is itself clear of obstruction (though you could still arrive in the middle of a Stinking Cloud).

Or are you thinking of shorter-range spells e.g. Dimension Door or (Bowgentle's) Fleeting Journey?

I believe @AbdulAlhazred is speaking about Teleportation key word Powers, ie those used in combat. Long range teleportation is moved to Rituals in 4E.

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

Fireball requires line of sight but I should still be able to cast one if I'm blind or I can't otherwise see what I'm aiming at, e.g. I cast it at the footsteps I hear approaching in the darkness beyond what my light source reveals. I just might not necessarily hit those footsteps. It's the line of sight terminology that confuses here when what's really meant is line of effect i.e. no obstructions in the way.

Which is why 4e is so careful to define BOTH LOE and LOS properly and then distinguish what you need. You can cast a fireball anywhere you have LOE that is in range. In fact casting it into the dark doesn't really present any problem at all, it will have the same effect whether you can see any targets or not, being an area attack (another thing that is carefully defined). 4e however, interestingly, doesn't really define what happens if you, say, cast it into the darkness and smack there's a wall you couldn't see between you and the target square. TECHNICALLY I guess the spell fails to go off because the target is illegal. I doubt most GMs would call it that way however. Still it is one corner case that is open to interpretation. So we see that every game has some of these, they're inevitable.

This is perhaps more intuitive for me as I require an aiming roll for any ranged AoE spells anyway; adding a penalty for being blind or for casting into darkness is trivial.

Why is it harder to shoot a fireball 100 feet into darkness than light? I mean, maybe it is, maybe it isn't, nothing in any edition tells us how the caster judges distance to exactly!

Also, what if a caster is or has become inherently blind due to either player choice during char-gen or a mishap while adventuring?

In 4e it won't matter at all. A blind Wizard can cast AoEs with 100% effectiveness, although it isn't stated in the rules whether or not the player gets to see the battle grid! Also, even without vision you do have other senses, Perception checks can localize targets, though again it is not really specific about exactly what the senses of ordinary people can do in that regard. Blind Sight, for instance, works just as well as actual sight out to its range limit though.

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

I believe @AbdulAlhazred is speaking about Teleportation key word Powers, ie those used in combat. Long range teleportation is moved to Rituals in 4E.

Right, 4e long-range teleport is actually a whole other beast entirely, and is significantly different from classic D&D teleport. The target location of an LR teleport MUST be a teleportation circle. You can't just go to any old spot. There's no such thing as 'scry and die' tactics. However you can SCRIBE a circle, and then later 'port to it from somewhere else. So instead the tactics are more fun, you have to sneak in, or send a guy with the ability to scribe the circle, THEN you can scribe and return later.

So the normal LR teleport tactics is to scribe a circle at your home base (guard the coordinates well!) and then travel to your destination and 'port back, possibly leaving a new circle in the now explored area so you can more easily return later. Kind of a fun concept. There are some high Epic capstone type versions though that will let you do the more traditional sort of 'porting, or similar stuff like planeswalking.

 

[Lanefan]

Which is why 4e is so careful to define BOTH LOE and LOS properly and then distinguish what you need. You can cast a fireball anywhere you have LOE that is in range. In fact casting it into the dark doesn't really present any problem at all, it will have the same effect whether you can see any targets or not, being an area attack (another thing that is carefully defined).

Does 4e allow the caster to unerringly target the fireball if casting into darkness, though? If yes, that seems too generous.

4e however, interestingly, doesn't really define what happens if you, say, cast it into the darkness and smack there's a wall you couldn't see between you and the target square. TECHNICALLY I guess the spell fails to go off because the target is illegal.

Or the fireball just wrecks on the intervening wall and blows up there, which is how it would work in any other edition.

Why is it harder to shoot a fireball 100 feet into darkness than light? I mean, maybe it is, maybe it isn't, nothing in any edition tells us how the caster judges distance to exactly!

Which is why I force the aiming roll.

But judging distance you can see is far easier than judging distance you can't see. Easy experiment: if you have access to a large-ish dark room with some open space in it (a garage with no cars in it, for example), lay a hula hoop down on one side of the room and try to land a bean bag in it from the other side. Then try again with the lights off, or while wearing a blindfold.

In 4e it won't matter at all. A blind Wizard can cast AoEs with 100% effectiveness, although it isn't stated in the rules whether or not the player gets to see the battle grid! Also, even without vision you do have other senses, Perception checks can localize targets, though again it is not really specific about exactly what the senses of ordinary people can do in that regard. Blind Sight, for instance, works just as well as actual sight out to its range limit though.

Is Blind Sight the same as a bat's echolocation? If yes, it can certainly be used for targeting.