D&D 5E Spell Area doubts !

[maritimo80]

The Fireball SPELL for example is a square (ft.) with a point of origin. The question is, the area of Spell, only reaches horizontally, who are in the area but on a level ground, or an enemy is on the point of origin on a bridge up 10ft. ....he takes damage? How does the area in terms of vertical?

 

[Agamon]

Fireball is a 20 ft-radius sphere. So it reaches every point in space around the point of origin for 20 feet (unless blocked, of course).

 

[Coredump]

Fireball is a 20 ft-radius sphere. So it reaches every point in space around the point of origin for 20 feet (unless blocked, of course).

Oh how I miss the 1E fireball, which would fill an equivalent volume of space..... that was fun...

 

[Dausuul]

Oh how I miss the 1E fireball, which would fill an equivalent volume of space..... that was fun...

No reason you can't bring it back in 5E.

 

[Fralex]

In the playtest we also had a special kind of sphere called a "cloud," which could go around corners.

EDIT: Actually, fireball DOES do that still. I guess they realized they could just say "this sphere effect goes around corners" instead of giving it a different name.

 

[Shiroiken]

No reason you can't bring it back in 5E.

Other than the return of Friendly Fire TPKs

 

[Dausuul]

Other than the return of Friendly Fire TPKs

Is that supposed to be a reason against bringing it back?

 

[houser2112]

Oh how I miss the 1E fireball, which would fill an equivalent volume of space..... that was fun...

That would certainly make Evoker a more popular choice.

 

[Agamon]

In the playtest we also had a special kind of sphere called a "cloud," which could go around corners.

EDIT: Actually, fireball DOES do that still. I guess they realized they could just say "this sphere effect goes around corners" instead of giving it a different name.

Right. By blocked, I meant blocked by full cover, like a wall. It will balloon out around corners. Despite the handwavy physics oddities of a lot of D&D fundamentals, volumetric expansion still applies.

 

[Aenorgreen]

You could certainly bring back the volume calculation, I think it was removed for simplicity. I remember stopping the game for minutes while the DM had to figure out the amount of hallway that was filled up.