D&D 5E Rulings, Not Rules vs Cool spell usage

[MoutonRustique]

When I read this reply :

I absolutely disagree with this comment. Twice in my campaign, I have used this spell (albeit as a light domain cleric) to dramatically change the course of a fight. I'll admit it can be terrain dependant but in both cases there was a suitable 10 foot wide gap.
The first time, 2 connected rooms filled with enemies. As we engage I flaming phere the gap, we take on one half before I move the sphere to access the second half. Damage was limited but fighting 2 groups of 6 is much easier than fighting one group of 12. Total damage was about 30 made up of around 20 initially and the rest pushing into the second group, I had to drop it at that point though as I wanted my bonus action and concentration to case Shield of Faith.
Second case, another room of about 8 foes, again we engage and I use the sphere this time to block their retreat my blocking the stairs behind them. No damage this time but none of them got away to raise the alarm.

It does assume that creatures can't just run through it without taking damage, this is not explicit in the rules but is reasonably logical (as per the ramming rules with it) and my DM ruled that it could effectively block a 10 foot wide gap from passage if placed centrally (we were only dealing with medium sized creatures, it might need another discussion for small)

On burning hands, it can also be very situational but with co-operation from the rest of the party favourable circumstances can be engineered more often. My party now try to set up a fight so that the fighter and paladin are together but with a small <5ft gap between them so they can block and hold multiple enemies in a line. If it works, i will go next to the paladin to cast burning hands across their front. If I get attacked, I use warding flare or the paladin uses protection fighting to give the attack disadvantage. The gap is also used by the halfling bard to get in and cast thunderwave whilst the wizard being an evoc specialist can use burning hands from whatever the most favourable position is and sculpt round the fighter and paladin.

I thought about all the ways this could be called. For me, I prefer functional (as in one input = one output) systems - I'm limited that way. This situation is a pretty classic one and one likely to come up in play.

For my piece of mind, I'm missing some rules element/decision points here :
- is flaming sphere an obstacle?
- can flaming sphere be used by others by pushing things and creatures in it?
- if it is an obstacle, what kind of power is required to push through ?
- when you ram it into something - does it engulf it, or does it "stop" when it hits?

Anyone else have these issues? Anyone have an easy solution - because I'm apprehending a good deal of note taking required to keep all my calls coherent...

 

[The Crimson Binome]

I get your problem, and get why it's a problem, but I'm not sure what the easy solution is supposed to be.

Perhaps you could just trust in your own consistency. If you think about it, and rule one way in the first instance where it becomes an issue, then you should probably end up coming to the same conclusion if you were presented with it again. That way, you don't need to write or keep notes on anything, since you'll always get back to the same outcome when starting from the same place.

 

[raleel]

Yea, +1 to what Saelorn said. There isn't an easy answer. If you define everything in the world, it is hard to maintain consistency across everything. If you leave everything loose, then you have your problem.

I end up writing up house rules on a website. Often I will make a ruling in game, then go back after game and chat about it with the players. I don't really have a problem with changing the rule if it makes it more fun. They just want to know the parameters as well.

Some of it is that I can pull on a lot of lore, since I've been playing for a lot of years. That helps with many of them. That and if I make a ruling, i don't really have a problem with changing an action in that turn. Not in later turns though.

 

[pming]

Hiya.

I think you are thinking about it all in the wrong order. IMHO, thinking of the situation first, and then finding rules to fit it is the right way; taking a look at all the rules and trying to find one that fits is the wrong way. Very similar sentences, but with a subtle difference.

So...

Q: Is Flaming Sphere an obstacle?
A/Q: Would it stop you from walking down a hallway if it was directly in front of you? This is where you ignore your inclination to try and track down if/what an "obstacle" entails in RAW. Only after you have answered that question should you then move onto finding out if there is a rule to fit the situation; if there isn't, make it up.

Q: Can Flaming Sphere be used by others by pushing things and creatures into it?
A/Q: If you were standing in front of it and someone shoved you forward towards it, what would likely be the result? Likely, you'd fall into it...but maybe you could stop yourself or dodge to the side. Either way, the answer is obviously "yes". Now, go try to find a rule to fit that situational outcome.

Q: If it is an obstacle, what kind of power is required to push through?
A: This one is totally up for grabs. No help anywhere as far as I can tell...definitely a "make it up" situation.

Q: When you ram it into something - does it engulf it, or doe it "stop" when it hits?
A/Q: How bit is the "something"? If that something is smaller than the sphere, then there's your answer; if it's bigger, there's your answer.

In all honesty, there's virtually no situation in 5e that has come up for me that had me truely scratching my head. I think there was one situation where the decision was so "maybe yes...maybe no", and nobody at the table (including myself) could get a clear idea...I just said "Roll d20; odd you can, even you can't. Sound good?", and the player just rolled a d20 and we played on. Sometimes you do just have to pick a chance and "wing it". The game play and pacing is more important than virtually all the rules of the game, so don't sweat it.

^_^

Paul L. Ming

 

[MoutonRustique]

Thank you both - good advice.

I much prefer when things are known by players before hand, but I guess we'll have to have "that first case" first and take it from there. There are good deal of cool things in 5e - but I see all these little holes everywhere... They always make me stop myself before I commit to this edition.

 

[MoutonRustique]

Hiya.

I think you are thinking about it all in the wrong order. IMHO, thinking of the situation first, and then finding rules to fit it is the right way; taking a look at all the rules and trying to find one that fits is the wrong way. Very similar sentences, but with a subtle difference.

So...

Q: Is Flaming Sphere an obstacle?
A/Q: Would it stop you from walking down a hallway if it was directly in front of you? This is where you ignore your inclination to try and track down if/what an "obstacle" entails in RAW. Only after you have answered that question should you then move onto finding out if there is a rule to fit the situation; if there isn't, make it up.

Q: Can Flaming Sphere be used by others by pushing things and creatures into it?
A/Q: If you were standing in front of it and someone shoved you forward towards it, what would likely be the result? Likely, you'd fall into it...but maybe you could stop yourself or dodge to the side. Either way, the answer is obviously "yes". Now, go try to find a rule to fit that situational outcome.

Q: If it is an obstacle, what kind of power is required to push through?
A: This one is totally up for grabs. No help anywhere as far as I can tell...definitely a "make it up" situation.

Q: When you ram it into something - does it engulf it, or doe it "stop" when it hits?
A/Q: How bit is the "something"? If that something is smaller than the sphere, then there's your answer; if it's bigger, there's your answer.

In all honesty, there's virtually no situation in 5e that has come up for me that had me truely scratching my head. I think there was one situation where the decision was so "maybe yes...maybe no", and nobody at the table (including myself) could get a clear idea...I just said "Roll d20; odd you can, even you can't. Sound good?", and the player just rolled a d20 and we played on. Sometimes you do just have to pick a chance and "wing it". The game play and pacing is more important than virtually all the rules of the game, so don't sweat it.

^_^

Paul L. Ming

I get what you're saying, and it can work fine that way indeed.

But as a DM, I prefer to make coherent decisions (as I'm "setting the physics of the world") and as player, I like to know what I'm choosing when I choose something. In the current case, having flaming sphere be an obstacle or not is huge aspect of it!
- if it is, then I have a plethora of tactical options open to me (block corridors, stairs, create hard choke points for my allies, etc, etc.)
- can something be pushed in/on it for immediate additional damage : this game is played as a team, if I can set up a situation to offer a source of additional damage to my fellow players, that's something I want to know - if not (and I think I can) I'll be very disappointed when I use my limited resource to a much lesser impact than I had planned.

These are things I want to know now - when I choose the spell (both as a player and as a DM) because it impacts how I'll create and play my character as well as how I create and plan my encounters.

I understand that not every situation can be defined, but I chose this example because it is NOT a corner case, these are things I wondered as soon as I read the spell.

But still, thank you for your advice.

 

[Mouseferatu]

But as a DM, I prefer to make coherent decisions (as I'm "setting the physics of the world") and as player, I like to know what I'm choosing when I choose something.

Whereas for me, I enjoy seeing my players try something I hadn't thought of with their spells, and as a player, I often take spells because I'm interested in seeing what I can think of to do with them. In that respect, a prefer "fuzzier" editions (1E, 2E, 5E) to more concrete/spelled out ones (3E, 4E).

Obviously, there are limits. I want to know all the basics of what a spell can do when I pick it. But I don't want every possible case, or even every semi-likely case, spelled out.

So I guess my advice to you is, before you decide anything, figure out what your players prefer. What seems like a pure consistency issue to you can drastically alter the playstyles available--or enjoyable--to them.

 

[MoutonRustique]

Whereas for me, I enjoy seeing my players try something I hadn't thought of with their spells, and as a player, I often take spells because I'm interested in seeing what I can think of to do with them. In that respect, a prefer "fuzzier" editions (1E, 2E, 5E) to more concrete/spelled out ones (3E, 4E).

Obviously, there are limits. I want to know all the basics of what a spell can do when I pick it. But I don't want every possible case, or even every semi-likely case, spelled out.

So I guess my advice to you is, before you decide anything, figure out what your players prefer. What seems like a pure consistency issue to you can drastically alter the playstyles available--or enjoyable--to them.

Indeed! And that's my point - I want to know so I don't stifle anyone (either my players, or myself!)

For me, clear rules make unexpected applications possible. Otherwise, everything is simply probable and I've found that "clever" use of spell is often equanamous(spelling?) to "improper application of miss-understood Earth-type physics" or "illusions imposing effects that would require much higher leveled spells due to "realism"". This is probably an issue that relates more to the people I play with (and myself) than the actual game - though, from play reports I've read, it is not something only I have encountered.

In a game with things like a fear spell, making people flee because a roar down the hall or the image of a mighty beast is displeasing to me : why set the fear spell at level X, when you can have the same effect at level X-3? (I chose a fear effect, because it was the first thing in my head - it is simply an example.) The idea is cool, the implementation is cool, but it brings so many world building concerns with it...

I am firmly in the camp that separates the characters' abilities from the players', I don't want a game where one has to "outwit" the DM (or the players) consistently (of course, once in while is fun! But it shouldn't be a "normal" part of the game.)

I don't really know where I'm going with this anymore so I'll leave as is and let you guys worry about making any kind of sense out of it.

Cheers!

 

[KarinsDad]

My take is that it is an object that can be pushed through. It's fire. Something easy to understand.

Just moving past it does nothing. Moving through it should do damage. IMO.

The original quote that you brought up did allow it to stop foes from moving through a 10 foot wide gap, but I would not allow a 5 foot effect to do that. In grids (squares or hexes), the player would need to pick one. In theater of the mind, NPCs could move in the 2.5 foot area around the spell with difficult terrain.

I also view that the effect stops in the square of the target on a ram. It hits him and stays put (abet in the same square). This makes adjudication easy for where the target can be when the wizard moves the spell. The target is 30 feet max away, not 35. I could see a ruling for it stopping in the previous adjacent square, but I don't see a need to muddy the waters.

 

[MoutonRustique]

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