Shapeable Spells

[Cheiromancer]

(S) Shapeable

If an Area or Effect entry ends with "(S)," you can shape the spell. A shaped effect or area can have no dimension smaller than 10 feet. Many effects or areas are given as cubes to make it easy to model irregular shapes. Three-dimensional volumes are most often needed to define aerial or underwater effects and areas.

Can a 20-ft. cube can be disassembled (if shapeable) into 8 10-ft. cubes?

How does shapeable work with something like Control Water? I've been interpreting it as saying that you could affect a smaller area than desired; a 100 x 200 x 40 foot area instead of the 200 x 200 x 40; that would still be "squarish." But you couldn't make a series of troughs in the area, or selectively lower areas to produce a lot of little 10-ft. square "pillars" or whatever. Now I'm not so sure.

Earthquake is also shapeable, and it is even less clear how that would work. Again I'd suppose that you could affect a smaller area than desired, but you only have one "dial" to control; the radius of the spread. Can you be more selective than that? Can you spare particular squares of ground?

How would you interpret these spells?

 

[frankthedm]

Can a 20-ft. cube can be disassembled (if shapeable) into 8 10-ft. cubes?

No. That minimum prevents only a 5'x5' area to be affected with a shapable spell. it does not allow a caster to chop up a shapable spell that used 20' cubes.

An Earthquake's radius can't leave any square uneffected, That is not a property of a radius. Depending on how one read's the word "dimension", that might mean a 10' radius is the smallest allowable, or possibly a 5' radius Earthquake might be allowable since that creates a 10' circle.

Control Water could make a rectangle 10' wide x70' long x 10' deep. The spell only gives you a single area to work with.

 

[Cheiromancer]

That's what I thought! Do you you happen to know if this is spelled out in the rules anywhere? The bit I quoted from the SRD isn't as clear cut as I would like.