D&D 5E Wall of Force and spells

[cbwjm]

Except anything trapped in a hemispherical WoF is completely enclosed by the wall, so no way for the sound to usefully get in.

With a flat WoF this would work, only the person wouldn't be trapped.

Guess it depends on how well it blocks sound. If you can talk to people in the the hemisphere, then I'd allow thunder damage to penetrative the wall.

 

[James Gasik]

Spell that doesn't target and doesn't have an area of effect, Motivational Speech.

Choose up to five creatures within range that can hear you. For the duration, each affected creature gains 5 temporary hit points and has advantage on Wisdom saving throws. If an affected creature is hit by an attack, it has advantage on the next attack roll it makes. Once an affected creature loses the temporary hit points granted by this spell, the spell ends for that creature.

Not a big deal to allow, since it's a beneficial effect, but a spell worded this way might not care about cover that doesn't block sound.

 

[Stalker0]

Spell that doesn't target and doesn't have an area of effect, Motivational Speech.

Choose up to five creatures within range that can hear you. For the duration, each affected creature gains 5 temporary hit points and has advantage on Wisdom saving throws. If an affected creature is hit by an attack, it has advantage on the next attack roll it makes. Once an affected creature loses the temporary hit points granted by this spell, the spell ends for that creature.

Not a big deal to allow, since it's a beneficial effect, but a spell worded this way might not care about cover that doesn't block sound.

Spells that don’t have targets or areas of effect are not subject to the clear path rule, you can ignore total cover just fine in those scenarios.

 

[Maxperson]

Which raises another odd and probably fairly common situation where the rules make little or no narrative sense: when a spell is purely sonic e.g. Command or many Bard spells/effects, it by RAW can't target or affect someone hiding behind a tree or boulder even though a) sound goes around corners way better than light does and thus b) said target can clearly hear it.

Everybody hears the command, why is it the one guy the caster can't see that has to obey? Because the magic targets him specifically over the others. It makes more sense for the wizard to have to see the target of the Command spell than for him to be able to target one hidden voice out of 20 voices hidden in the darkness.

 

[Paul Farquhar]

Nothing can physically pass through the wall.

That has to include sound waves, which are the physical displacement of air molecules.

You might get a little bit of low frequency sound transmitted through the ground, depending on the surface, but, broadly speaking, you can't hear anything inside a Wall of Force dome.

 

[Lanefan]

That has to include sound waves, which are the physical displacement of air molecules.

You might get a little bit of low frequency sound transmitted through the ground, depending on the surface, but, broadly speaking, you can't hear anything inside a Wall of Force dome.

Make your dome small enough and lack of breathable air will become a concern before long for anyone caught within...assuming its connection with the floor or ground is airtight.

And if it's not airtight then at least some sound can get through, though probably not very clearly.

 

[Lanefan]

Everybody hears the command, why is it the one guy the caster can't see that has to obey? Because the magic targets him specifically over the others. It makes more sense for the wizard to have to see the target of the Command spell than for him to be able to target one hidden voice out of 20 voices hidden in the darkness.

OK, that's fair.

But when there's nobody else around except the one guy hiding behind a boulder, and the caster can see the boulder and thus knows where that person is, I'd think a Command should work.

 

[Stalker0]

OK, that's fair.

But when there's nobody else around except the one guy hiding behind a boulder, and the caster can see the boulder and thus knows where that person is, I'd think a Command should work.

And that’s a reasonable dm call, which is what 5e is all about.

But is it RAW? No…by raw the spell has a target, and therefore, the target must not be behind total cover

 

[Lanefan]

And that’s a reasonable dm call, which is what 5e is all about.

But is it RAW? No…by raw the spell has a target, and therefore, the target must not be behind total cover

Shouldn't getting the two bolded things into perfect synch be the holy grail of D&D's rule designers?

 

[Stalker0]

Shouldn't getting the two bolded things into perfect synch be the holy grail of D&D's rule designers?

Nope not anymore. 5e threw that out, realizing that it was creating heavy legalese books, rules lawyer players…and even with all that rules work dms we’re still having to make calls anyway.

5e embraced that dm rulings is the heart of dnd, and decided to use it rather than try to remove it