Upgrade your account to a Community Supporter account and remove most of the site ads.

Reply to thread

Message: <blockquote data-quote="Voadam" data-source="post: 9404417" data-attributes="member: 2209">In my game last night the party was exploring a tech dungeon with a bunch of abandoned damaged labs with dangerous stuff unleashed inside, but also possible loot and notes the party might want. Each lab was air sealed but had windows so you could see inside and sometimes controls on the outside to run experiments inside.The question comes up with what can a spellcaster do through a glass window? Line of sight but a transparent barrier between them and things inside.Can a bard cast shatter or polymorph past the barrier to target a creature inside while safe outside? Can they misty step past the sealed door keeping the bad stuff locked in their lab, grab some loot and misty step back out?In 3e and 4e line of sight versus line of effect were fairly defined.I looked up the targeting section under spellcasting in the PH page 204 to try and parse out the 5e RAW.TARGETSA typical spell requires you to pick one or more targets to be affected by the spell's magic. A spell's description tells you whether the spell targets creatures, objects, or a point of origin for an area of effect (described below).Unless a spell has a perceptible effect, a creature might not know it was targeted by a spell at all. An effect like crackling lightning is obvious, but a more subtle effect, such as an attempt to read a creature's thoughts, typically goes unnoticed, unless a spell says otherwise.A CLEAR PATH TO THE TARGETTo target something, you must have a clear path to it, so it can't be behind total cover.If you place an area of effect at a point that you can't see and an obstruction, such as a wall, is between you and that point, the point of origin comes into being on the near side of that obstruction.TARGETING YOURSELFIf a spell targets a creature of your choice, you can choose yourself, unless the creature must be hostile or specifically a creature other than you. If you are in the area of effect of a spell you cast, you can target yourself.I ruled that the window was a barrier and meant total cover which blocked targeting the creatures or areas past the barrier but that misty step targeted the caster and they could teleport past the barrier.Is this how you would interpret the 5e targetting rules or something different?Is anything else RAW applicable?</blockquote>

Verification