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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Lanefan" data-source="post: 7716111" data-attributes="member: 29398">That, I have to say, is bloody genius!And for cone effects you can just lay the flashlight on the table and the light will form a cone... <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f642.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":)" title="Smile    :)"  data-smilie="1"data-shortname=":)" />I've made casters roll to aim area-effect spells since the day I started DMing.  Since then, as I've slowly re-written all the spells (mostly to get them online) each has picked up a designation "area" or "targeted": keywords that point to whether an aiming orll is required (area) or not (targeted).  This keyword appears in the spell's "range" entry, so a range might look like "50 indoors, 150 outdoors (area)" or "touch (targeted)".Yes I still use different ranges for indoors and outdoors. <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f642.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":)" title="Smile    :)"  data-smilie="1"data-shortname=":)" />As other have pointed out, this is still messy.Someone upthread tossed in what to me seems the simplest idea, which I'll here repeat: the stunned target loses its next action no matter when it would occur.  So, if the orc gets stunned but has already acted this round, it loses next round's action.  If the orc gets stunned and hasn't yet acted this round it doesn't, and is back to normal next round...unless it gets stunned again.There are two root problems causing the disconnect here, I think.One is the absurdly short round length.  I've always thought spellcasting should require some impressive incantating and hand-waving, and a 1-second round just doesn't do it justice.  The minute-long rounds in 1e were too far the other direction, but there has to be a happy medium in there somewhere - 20 seconds?  30 seconds?The other problem, also tied to the need for impressive incantating and hand-waving, is that while in theory casting while under melee attack should be utterly impossible* as you are without fail going to be interrupted the game rules have over the editions made it less and less penalizing to do so.  The very idea of "combat casting" is what's absurd*. <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f642.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":)" title="Smile    :)"  data-smilie="1"data-shortname=":)" />* - with one huge exception: a few specific battle-oriented spells e.g. Prayer being cast in the heat of combat by a battle or war cleric.  In fact I have it that one of the "Somatic" components for a war cleric to cast Prayer at all is that she has to either be in or charge in to melee!  The flip side is they can't be interrupted unless completely incapacitated or killed.Lan-"aim is particularly important (and difficult) with things like rebounding lightning bolts, which 5e is sadly lacking"-efanEDIT: a p.s. to the last bit: though I post here as Lanefan the Fighter, I should probably point out that nearly all the characters I've played recently - as in, the last 20-odd years - have been casters of one sort or another; so it's not like I'm coming at this from a pre-judged anti-caster angle.</blockquote>

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