Sleep, Circle of Death, and related spells.

[Wulf Ratbane]

I like Bryon's "fluff first" approach, and I think there is definitely a place for it in game design.

This is a wholly specious argument.

Yes, the fluff can inform game design. (Midnight, for example.)

But this is not a case of the fluff informing the design. This is a case of trying to find a fluff validation of your rules interpretation ex post facto. I've seen it more times than I can count, across almost every game system I have ever played. (But it was particularly prevalent in 1e and 2e D&D.)

There is zero evidence to support the suggestion that magic "fluff" has anything to do with one interpretation or the other. It's a rule. It either works one way, or the other.


EDIT: I had to put up with this a lot when I was playing 40k. One of my favorite "fluff informs design" examples from 40k-- one that was done well, IMO-- was with the Ork army. In the fluff, certain clans of Orks were fond of painting their vehicles fiery red, because of the superstition that "red ones goes fasta." On the tabletop, if your vehicle models were actually painted red, you got to add +1" to the movement rate.

 

[BryonD]

This is a case of trying to find a fluff validation of your rules interpretation ex post facto. I've seen it more times than I can count, across almost every game system I have ever played. (But it was particularly prevalent in 1e and 2e D&D.)

There is zero evidence to support the suggestion that magic "fluff" has anything to do with one interpretation or the other. It's a rule. It either works one way, or the other.

Yes and no. To a certain degree you are right. I've certainly never gone through this specific thought process before.

However, I don't consider it a fortunate coincidence that it works out so cleanly. I think 3E is designed with a bit of logic to it. That isn't a claim that you can not find holes in it. There are going to be paradoxes when you start creating magic systems with nearly unlimited interactions. But at the most simple level, basic cause and effect applies.

I'm not backing a solution into a system I like. I like the system that so consistently makes it a no-brainer to back decent solutions into it.

Did the Ogre roll a save?

Edit: I also think there is a huge difference between fluff based design (red vehicles go faster), which I like when they fit, and more model based design (an arbitrary mote of magic represents units when there are HD limits). I'm not disputing Glassjaw's claim. I just think you have kinda veered it off 90 degree from what he was really saying.

 

[Hypersmurf]

Creatures within 10 feet of the caster but further away than the last creature above are unaffected because the spell ran out of power before it ever got to them.

That's not always true, though.

Let's use a Widened Sleep, just to give us a few more squares to play with. 20' radius burst.

Let's say we have two kobolds, a gnoll, and an ogre. The ogre is 5 (and 10) feet away from the Point Of Origin, the gnoll is 15 feet away, and the kobolds are 15 and 20 feet away respectively.

First creature required to make a save? Kobold A. Second creature required to make a save? Kobold B. Third creature required to make a save? The gnoll.

Let's say they all fail. The last creature affected was the gnoll, but kobold B is further away than the last creature.

The ogre is closer than all three, and had they not been present (or had the spell not been Widened), he would have been required to make a save. But the spell 'ran out of power' after affecting creatures further away from the point of origin than he was.

So the "expanding wave" analogy is flawed, because distance from the centre is not the sole criterion of which order things are affected.

Now, under the "required to save = affected" reading, we roll saves in that order - Kobold A, Kobold B, Gnoll - and at that point, we stop, because whether they saved or failed, the spell has affected 1+1+2=4 HD of creatures.

The way I read it - based on Hypnotic Pattern's wording, that an "affected creature" is one who actually suffers the effects of the spell and therefore failed his save - we still roll saves in the same order - Kobold A, Kobold B, Gnoll - but we only count the creatures who fail the save and are thus 'affected creatures' into the total of Hit Dice Already Affected. So if the kobolds both fail but the gnoll saves, our total of hit dice affected is 2, and 2 hit dice remain; insufficient to affect the ogre, who is again left unscathed. But if all three succeed, our total of hit dice affected is 0, and 4 hit dice remain; sufficient to affect the ogre, so he must roll a save to see if he is affected or not.

Either case is still subject to the Schrodinger's Wave problem. The ogre, standing beside the Point Of Origin in an empty room, certainly needs to save... unless there are invisible kobolds standing behind him, in which case they will soak up the magical energy and protect him, despite being further from the centre. The ogre doesn't know if he needs to attempt a save until the whole of the area of the spell has been evaluated.

-Hyp.

 

[Plane Sailing]

FWIW I've always done B (from OD&D onwards, relating to sleep spells - I think it was 4d4HD in those days, capped at max of 4HD).

We've always rolled to see the number potentially effected, and then those potentially effected roll saving throws (or keel over if it is circle of death).

It hasn't ever occurred to us to do it any other way.

Cheers

 

[Hypersmurf]

We've always rolled to see the number potentially effected, and then those potentially effected roll saving throws (or keel over if it is circle of death).

But your very wording, "potentially affected", implies that these are creatures who may be affected or who may not be affected, doesn't it? If they turn out to be creatures who are not affected, don't you still have some "total hit dice affected" in hand?

The spell doesn't have a limit on how many hit dice are potentially affected; it has a limit on how many hit dice are affected.

-Hyp.

 

[BryonD]

That's not always true, though.

Let's use a Widened Sleep, just to give us a few more squares to play with. 20' radius burst.

Let's say we have two kobolds, a gnoll, and an ogre. The ogre is 5 (and 10) feet away from the Point Of Origin, the gnoll is 15 feet away, and the kobolds are 15 and 20 feet away respectively.

First creature required to make a save? Kobold A. Second creature required to make a save? Kobold B. Third creature required to make a save? The gnoll.

Let's say they all fail. The last creature affected was the gnoll, but kobold B is further away than the last creature.

The ogre is closer than all three, and had they not been present (or had the spell not been Widened), he would have been required to make a save. But the spell 'ran out of power' after affecting creatures further away from the point of origin than he was.

So the "expanding wave" analogy is flawed, because distance from the centre is not the sole criterion of which order things are affected.

No, it finds the lowest HD monsters and affects them. The kobolds and gnoll, and whatever else would be hit until the HD limit was used up. The Ogre is never in question. There is no flaw there.

You've incorrectly applied the model I described.

 

[BryonD]

The way I read it - based on Hypnotic Pattern's wording, that an "affected creature" is one who actually suffers the effects of the spell and therefore failed his save - we still roll saves in the same order - Kobold A, Kobold B, Gnoll - but we only count the creatures who fail the save and are thus 'affected creatures' into the total of Hit Dice Already Affected. So if the kobolds both fail but the gnoll saves, our total of hit dice affected is 2, and 2 hit dice remain; insufficient to affect the ogre, who is again left unscathed. But if all three succeed, our total of hit dice affected is 0, and 4 hit dice remain; sufficient to affect the ogre, so he must roll a save to see if he is affected or not.

Well, that is where we disagree. I think the wording in Sleep trumps the wording in HP for applying Sleep. And I think it is clear in the example in Sleep that the Ogre never even rolled.

Either case is still subject to the Schrodinger's Wave problem. The ogre, standing beside the Point Of Origin in an empty room, certainly needs to save... unless there are invisible kobolds standing behind him, in which case they will soak up the magical energy and protect him, despite being further from the centre. The ogre doesn't know if he needs to attempt a save until the whole of the area of the spell has been evaluated.

-Hyp.

Nope. In my application there is no Shrodinger problem. If there are enough HD of other lower HD monsters (in the Ogre's case anything greater than 1) within the area, then the spell never hits him any more than the errant spider fang hit the fighter. The fighter is not a Shrodinger case. Either the fang hit or it missed. The ogre is not a Shrodinger case, either the spell touched him or it did not. If there are enough other HD available, then it did not. Simple, no reason to ever even consider rolling the die.

Now, you can say that the case of a wizard casting Sleep at a "lone" ogre with the expectation of indirectly targeting him by default, only to have three or four invisible kobolds fall over is strange. But so be it. I've already agreed that you are going to have oddball interactions when you start mixing and matching effects. That just doesn't bother me. And this case in particular isn't really illogical. It is just unexpected.

It also doesn't bother me that a first level spell may not work out right in the presence of a second level spell. Though CoD would have the same issue. So, ok, still seems fair. That is what invisibility does. It prevents people from having all the data to correctly make choices. Invisibility does not actually interact with Sleep or CoD. Both spells resolve exactly the same whether the kobolds are visible or not. Invis just interacts with the CoD caster to prompt him to interact with surroundings in ways that don't match his perception.

 

[Hypersmurf]

Well, that is where we disagree. I think the wording in Sleep trumps the wording in HP for applying Sleep. And I think it is clear in the example in Sleep that the Ogre never even rolled.

Absolutely. I wouldn't expect the ogre to roll... assuming that the lesser creatures in the queue ahead of him failed their saves.

The ogre wouldn't need to roll unless the spell calls his number, and there are still sufficient hit dice remaining unaffected to cover his tab.

See, I'm using a model identical to yours - the spell has a certain amount of 'power', and if sufficient power is expended on lesser creatures first, the greater creature doesn't even need to attempt a save. The only difference between our models is that your spell expends power if a lesser creature attempts a save (whether or not he is affected), and my spell expends power if a lesser creature fails a save and is affected.

You've incorrectly applied the model I described.

Perhaps I misunderstood... but you said "No creature further out than the last creature can be affected", and in my example, one of the creatures affected was further out than the last creature affected...

-Hyp.