Mongolia Jones
First Post
Now forget the house rule, and use the Wall as written. Suppose you are standing around minding your own business, and someone casts Wall of Fire so that it intersects your square. You take no immediate damage, but at the start of your turn, you take damage for being in the Wall. If, however, before your turn you are removed from the wall (either someone slides you, or you're granted an out-of-turn move), you take no damage (or, at worst, adjacent damage).
So you might well say, given the RAW Wall of Fire, "It sure does not make sense. Why wouldn't I take damage from a wall of fire appearing around me?"
-Hyp.
Good point H-smurf, but we play wall of fire a little different than how you described above. We added an Attack: Int vs Ref to the power. There is then an attack roll for every creature in the zone for the initial casting. So then the power works just like many of the other zone powers. (this also may have been in the PHB errata as well.)
example:
1. Wizard casts Wall of Fire, makes attack rolls vs any creatures in AoE zone
2. Those that are hit take 3d6+int damage (similar to Nec Web mechanics)
3. Those that are missed take no damage (similar to Nec Web mechanics)
4. From this point on, creatures will take damage if they start or enter the zone on their turn ONLY. (like Nec Web but better since Nec Web only causes damage if you start you turn in the zone, not if you move into it).
We use the same mechanic on Blade Barrier, Stinking Cloud, Cloudkill, Fire Storm, and Blood Pulse. (i.e. cause damage once on initial cast and zone damage on creatures turns thereafter)
Other powers like Evard's, and Astral Storm only cause damage on the casters turn, those power are pretty self explanatory anyway.
In the end it all works out pretty good. All "continual" zone damage rolls only happens once per round per target. This balances the powers very nicely and cuts out all the cheese.