D&D General "that you can see", "line of sight", glass, mirrors, ~clairvoyance, blindsight, and anything else.

[James Gasik]

It's certainly believable that cover isn't universal, and some forms of cover don't apply to certain all kinds of attacks. I'm not arguing that the intent of wall of force, for example isn't fairly clear; conjure a sheet of transparent unobtainium and use it to protect yourself, or trap your enemies. I think, however, the designers went a little too far and should have reigned the spell in by giving it weaknesses anyone could exploit, not just specifically prepared magical foes, but once you start looking at spells with that eye, you've fallen into a rabbit hole. A pretty deep one.

 

[Oofta]

It's certainly believable that cover isn't universal, and some forms of cover don't apply to certain all kinds of attacks. I'm not arguing that the intent of wall of force, for example isn't fairly clear; conjure a sheet of transparent unobtainium and use it to protect yourself, or trap your enemies. I think, however, the designers went a little too far and should have reigned the spell in by giving it weaknesses anyone could exploit, not just specifically prepared magical foes, but once you start looking at spells with that eye, you've fallen into a rabbit hole. A pretty deep one.

I go by the rules unless I state otherwise. Spells and ranged weapon attacks have gone by the same rules for as long as I can remember. It hasn't caused much of an issue before, I don't see it causing any issues now.

 

[James Gasik]

Depends entirely on the group and the table. I'm in a group right now where if we got hit with a wall of force, only our Ranger could get out with their Fey Step. And another one where nobody could get out (but that's our own fault for actually trying to see if an all-Fighter party can work, we got a Samurai, a Champion, a Purple Dragon Knight, and a ranged Battlemaster). Fortunately, I don't expect too many enemy casters with Wall of Force or similar spells to start showing up any time soon!

On the other side of the fence, it's an occasionally frustrating element, but spellcasters have tons of those, so sometimes, a big encounter falls flat. Ah well, there's always next time, right?

 

[greg kaye]

...
Personally, I'd allow some spells to pierce some cover. A stone thrown by a catapult is going to go right through a window, a lightning bolt or fireball is going to ignore a thin sheet or lightweight tapestry.

But a magic missile only targets creatures and can't affect an inanimate object. It would only take a tiny gap for the missiles, but there still has to be a gap. ...

I think that we are agreeing on most issues.
I'm not saying that this is how it should be ruled but, for a potential target of magic missile who was behind a narrow, short section of wall and who was seen by such means as a mirror, a form of magical/psionic sight or tremorsense, prehaps the gap could be over the top or around the sides or, with three missiles, via all three routes. How cool would that be?

 

[Starfox]

Holding up a blanket makes you untargettable? If the GM objects, get a thicker blanket? How thick does the blanket have to be to count as an obstacle? How about carrying a wheelbarrow in front of you? I'd call that an obstacle. So the line must be somewhere between them, at the worst.

My take:

• If you are holding a blanket, the blanket is part of you as far as targeting goes. Perhaps this could be considered a way to do the Dodge action?
• If you hang the blanket so that it is supported and blocks line of sight, it will block spells that require the target to see you.

Otherwise, rule of cool.

 

[Oofta]

I think that we are agreeing on most issues.
I'm not saying that this is how it should be ruled but, for a potential target of magic missile who was behind a narrow, short section of wall and who was seen by such means as a mirror, a form of magical/psionic sight or tremorsense, prehaps the gap could be over the top or around the sides or, with three missiles, via all three routes. How cool would that be?

This has always been one of those things that seems more controversial in the hypothetical than in actual play. Like a lot of things the DM makes the call on edge cases and the game moves on.

The vast majority of times it's pretty straightforward. The DM decides how they're going to run it, explain it for cases like spells through glass and we move on.

 

[tomBitonti]

To say ... I'm finding the use of the word "cover" to be part of the confusion in this discussion.
Similarly, "obstacle". There are to many meanings, imprecise meanings, to gain much traction.

A leafy branch can provide total cover, but that would hardly stop most attacks. And maybe should not stop spells with attack rolls, say, damaging rays.

Also to say, the distinction between an image in a mirror and a direct image are more or less meaningless. (The use of "virtual" in describing images seems rather a confusing and un-useful notion for physics classes.) For example, having thick glasses, what I see is a distorted view of what a person who has 20/20 vision sees. Everything that I see is as if through a mirror. (Actually, you could put special prisms on glasses which invert the images. Eventually, the brain adapts and one can "see" normally using such glasses.)

It seems the real issue is whether one can construct a path from the caster to the target using one or another senses which locate things in space. That is, how the target is perceived matters less than what you do with the sense data which is received in regards the target.

It does seem to matter how the magic gets to the target, which gets in to the properties of the path that must be taken. Some spells have a physical component which must traverse a straight line. Some spells seem to just "come in to effect" at the target. In 3.5E days, walls of force were particular in that they extended into the Ethereal plane, and that sometimes mattered.

Note that a fireball targets a "point in space", with no notion of seeing the point in the spell description. Based on that, I'd allow a fireball to be fired down a hallway beyond sight range, perhaps with a check to see if the fireball went exactly straight. (In 3.5E days, we would have called for a spellcraft check.) Similarly, casting a fireball through a fog cloud would be fine -- adding something ad-hoc to allow inaccuracy.

TomB

 

[Oofta]

To say ... I'm finding the use of the word "cover" to be part of the confusion in this discussion.
Similarly, "obstacle". There are to many meanings, imprecise meanings, to gain much traction.

A leafy branch can provide total cover, but that would hardly stop most attacks. And maybe should not stop spells with attack rolls, say, damaging rays.

Also to say, the distinction between an image in a mirror and a direct image are more or less meaningless. (The use of "virtual" in describing images seems rather a confusing and un-useful notion for physics classes.) For example, having thick glasses, what I see is a distorted view of what a person who has 20/20 vision sees. Everything that I see is as if through a mirror. (Actually, you could put special prisms on glasses which invert the images. Eventually, the brain adapts and one can "see" normally using such glasses.)

It seems the real issue is whether one can construct a path from the caster to the target using one or another senses which locate things in space. That is, how the target is perceived matters less than what you do with the sense data which is received in regards the target.

It does seem to matter how the magic gets to the target, which gets in to the properties of the path that must be taken. Some spells have a physical component which must traverse a straight line. Some spells seem to just "come in to effect" at the target. In 3.5E days, walls of force were particular in that they extended into the Ethereal plane, and that sometimes mattered.

Note that a fireball targets a "point in space", with no notion of seeing the point in the spell description. Based on that, I'd allow a fireball to be fired down a hallway beyond sight range, perhaps with a check to see if the fireball went exactly straight. (In 3.5E days, we would have called for a spellcraft check.) Similarly, casting a fireball through a fog cloud would be fine -- adding something ad-hoc to allow inaccuracy.

TomB

Cover and concealment completely different things. You cannot target someone behind total cover with a ranged attack, if you attack someone totally concealed but otherwise not behind cover you simply have disadvantage to hit. Assuming you know where they are, of course. So heavy foliage could just be concealment and not be considered cover. Darkness never provides cover, darkness is not an obstacle that will obstruct movement.

 

[Paul Farquhar]

Have to agree with this, a branch might provide concealment and partial cover, but it does not provide full cover. You would have to be behind a decent-sized tree to have full cover.

 

[tomBitonti]

Cover and concealment completely different things. You cannot target someone behind total cover with a ranged attack, if you attack someone totally concealed but otherwise not behind cover you simply have disadvantage to hit. Assuming you know where they are, of course. So heavy foliage could just be concealment and not be considered cover. Darkness never provides cover, darkness is not an obstacle that will obstruct movement.

Yeah .. but, from your second post:

Total Cover
A target with total cover can't be targeted directly by an attack or a spell, although some spells can reach such a target by including it in an area of effect. A target has total cover if it is completely concealed by an obstacle.

According to this, "complete concealment" provides "total cover". A sufficiently leafy branch can easily provide complete concealment.

I really think "concealment", "cover", and "obstacle" are too slippery of terms to be useful in this discussion.

TomB