Rules Question: Illusory Wall

[Ruzak]

My thought is that when they said 8 squares, they were thinking 8 squares on the map, not 8 three dimensional cubes. If you ask someone to draw a wall with 8 squares on a battle map, they will use 8 squares and not think about the height. I think the part about the exception to adjacent squares when stacking was an afterthought (as many of the 3D rules appear to be). Otherwise a Wall 8 becomes pretty limited in its use. Even medium creatures can see over a five foot wall, and so to block sight you only have 4 map squares to work with. It it pretty useless against a large monster.
Also, the 4 squares high limitation seems pretty silly if we are limited to 8 3D cubes. All this prevents is making a very tall, 5 foot square pillar. But a 4 square limit on the height of an 8 square long wall makes sense.
Whatever the intent, making the PC use up his precious squares to make the wall high enough to be useful makes walls so undesirable no one in our group would take them.

 

[Markn]

Hmmm. I've seen a wizard for 30 levels now. We have one session left in our campaign. There have been two ongoing issues (for the DM) in regards to the wizard.

First, his ability to remove creatures from play - particularly with Maze which is Daily and requires a rediculous Int check to get out of and usually requires between 3-5 rounds before it works. To top it off, the build means he can actually use Maze 3 or more times a day because he has multiple ways to bring the power back.

Second, walls! Walls can really neutralize an encounter quick, so much so, that I detested them for a while until the wizard dropped them in place of something else. At any rate, we simply read the 8 square, up to 4 high thing and went with that. However, Aegeri has presented a very strong argument against that. From experience, I would say that would make walls less powerful and more in line with other spells of that level.

 

[Aegeri]

Whatever the intent, making the PC use up his precious squares to make the wall high enough to be useful makes walls so undesirable no one in our group would take them.

This is in fact the way it works. Walls are exceptional at blocking off areas like narrow corridors and similar. They also firmly control the squares they occupy in many cases. This does mean though that they are tricky to use, because you can't always affect things that are big enough to just ignore them (such as a flying creature), unless you stack the squares up. The best use for walls is to restrict movement in certain areas, deny flanking positions and similar. Walls are excellent for numerous things and they excel in tight dungeon environments. In the middle of an open cavern they can be used to make cover and terrain you wouldn't otherwise have access too. But you don't get your height for free. It's never been like that. The only reason I can see for the stacking rule is so that you can make a wall that affects a large creature - but you sacrifice the total number of squares. If walls can affect 8 x max height squares that is plainly ridiculous. I can see why so many DMs utterly hate walls if this is how people think they work!

My thought is that when they said 8 squares, they were thinking 8 squares on the map, not 8 three dimensional cubes. If you ask someone to draw a wall with 8 squares on a battle map, they will use 8 squares and not think about the height.

Eight squares is eight squares and a medium sized creature can't see over it if it says it blocks line of sight (like the Illusory Wall). Squares are an abstract concept. I sometimes think about feet for other purposes, but that's what I am claiming the RAW says in any manner. The RAW talks only about squares, not feet and so that was confusing of me (I shouldn't have flipped squares and 5' around, because that's not ultimately what 4E cares about very much). On the other hand, a 10 foot high dragon isn't worried at all about a 5 foot tall wall - but that is why you can stack them!

But a 4 square limit on the height of an 8 square long wall makes sense.

Except for the whole part this is occupying 32 squares. Where does the power say "Area wall 32"?

 

[Markn]

Walls are exceptional at blocking off areas like narrow corridors and similar. They also firmly control the squares they occupy in many cases.

This. This is why Walls were so strong in our campaign.

They shouldn't be useful in every combat. They SHOULD be tricky to use.

 

[Aegeri]

This. This is why Walls were so strong in our campaign.

They shouldn't be useful in every combat. They SHOULD be tricky to use.

Yeah, I've ran lots of combats where a PC could build themselves a small fortress out of walls with clever positioning. For example the illusory wall blocks line of sight, so you can use it to provide total concealment for the rogue/other characters to gain stealth (or to move across the room to another position without being seen and maintaining being hidden). In a narrow place, walls like Wall of Fire instantly and comprehensively shut down the entire encounter - especially when combined with even moderate amounts of forced movement.

If people think they are length AND height at the same time, why on earth would the rules ever need to include how you can build them vertically (except in some extreme corner cases).