Pen and Paper D&D

[Fordel]

That one is just  mostly.

[Sheepherder]

If a comely lass is murdered in the woods, and nobody is around to witness it, does a paladin fall?

I'd really like to try DM'ing a game with paladin code rules, and set him up for a fall in order to see if I could convince a paladin into thinking that he's fallen without actually doing anything mechanics-wise to the character.  Cruelty is ever so much more fun if you can convince the player to inflict it upon themselves.

[Morat20]

How often do you normally 'burn away' a non-vampires clothing after a fireball?

Practically all the time. It's just no one tracks it, for the most part, figuring you'll replace cloaks or -- if it's magical -- it's assumed to have the general magic item resistance.

A pushy GM might make you roll for each item, although mine only tends to do that for non-magic items when dealing with acid attacks.

It's just having a cloak there that's all that prevents you from sunny death is just begging for people to attack the cloak, which seems a lot easier than getting a stake through the heart.

You know, rip down the convienent curtains rather than stake Dracula.

[Rendakor]

Not sure how it works in 4E, but in 3.5 items are only affected by AOEs if the wearer rolls a natural 1 on his save.

[bhodi]

Also, in 3.5, that's when they removed a lot of additional spell effects. "fireball" as 3.5/4 describes it doesn't produce any concussive forces and can't blow open doors, and our GM described it as a weird supernatural globe of heat that just appears, envelops instantly, and does no more than the precise wording in the PHB. Basically his opinion was that it's magic and so it doesn't have to follow any laws, much less the laws of physics. So if the book doesn't specifically say it burns something than it doesn't burn it.

Then again, this ruling was to prevent us from doing odd/interesting/inventive things from the different spells. We had used things like portable holes and that one rod that stays where you leave it to devastating effect in the past, so I don't exactly blame him. Still, I think the writers thought the same way and the spell descriptions are very careful to lay out exactly what spells can and cannot do. There's no extrapolation or open ended abilities. It's part of what I mentioned before, the narrowing of effects. Thus, fireballs don't burn cloaks.

[Ingmar]

IMO the 'fireball doesn't hurt attended objects' rule is more or less a necessary one from a sanity perspective. It would become ludicrous very quickly trying to track item damage on every piece of everyone's gear.

[Strazos]

We had used things like portable holes and that one rod that stays where you leave it to devastating effect in the past,

Can you elaborate? 

[Koyasha]

Also, in 3.5, that's when they removed a lot of additional spell effects. "fireball" as 3.5/4 describes it doesn't produce any concussive forces and can't blow open doors, and our GM described it as a weird supernatural globe of heat that just appears, envelops instantly, and does no more than the precise wording in the PHB. Basically his opinion was that it's magic and so it doesn't have to follow any laws, much less the laws of physics. So if the book doesn't specifically say it burns something than it doesn't burn it.

Then again, this ruling was to prevent us from doing odd/interesting/inventive things from the different spells. We had used things like portable holes and that one rod that stays where you leave it to devastating effect in the past, so I don't exactly blame him. Still, I think the writers thought the same way and the spell descriptions are very careful to lay out exactly what spells can and cannot do. There's no extrapolation or open ended abilities. It's part of what I mentioned before, the narrowing of effects. Thus, fireballs don't burn cloaks.

These are precisely the things that make D&D and other tabletop RPG's particularly fun for me; without them, I feel as though I may as well be playing a computer game.  4th Edition in particular strongly feels like a push toward 'you can only do X, because that's all the rules say you can do' rather than 'you can do anything you want unless it is prohibited by the rules, and we have to figure out what your odds are' but as noted with Fireball, there was already a move in that direction with 3rd Edition.

[Rendakor]

Well the alternative is that you could never have scrolls drop as loot (and they comprise a significant portion of minor magic items) if the very person who could use them would be accidentally destroying them every battle. I love flavorful spells as much as the next guy, but if Fireball actually caught everything on fire it's usefulness would be greatly reduced in many combat encounters.

[Bzalthek]

Scrolls are often contained in scroll cases, which may or may not be flammable.  A simple, tin, cylindrical scroll case should be enough to survive a flash burst fireball.  Personally I used a jedi-handwave saying that the indicated target takes primary damage, and only easily combustible materials (grain dust, oil, loose tinder, etc) are in danger of being affected beyond obtaining a singed adjective. 

[Lantyssa]

I remember when fireballs had volume and woe to the unprepared (or the foes of the prepared) who cast one in a hallway.

[Polysorbate80]

I remember when fireballs had volume and woe to the unprepared (or the foes of the prepared) who cast one in a hallway.

I kinda miss that about the older versions.

Then again, it wasn't quite as bad back then if some of your equipment got blown up.  People weren't running around with a very specific set of magical gear designed to work with an optimized feat selection. 

That's not to say that people weren't attached to their +3 arrows of gazebo-slaying, but you could easily substitute in whatever junk you found.  Hell, most of the gear we used was whatever we scrounged up, not what we'd purchased at the local Mage-Mart.

[Sky]

I was usually lenient and allowed magic arrows/bows and that sort of thing to survive conflagration. But while I wasn't an encumbrance nazi, I did push hard for realistic load-carrying. A bag of holding was probably the most sought-after magic items in my campaigns. I also found it to make for more interesting role-playing, when fighters were worried about what a hilt was wrapped with because they had had a leather wrapping burned off their first sword (wire wrapped hilts became popular).

But I was never really about the rules, which is why the constant revisions turned me off. The new system sounds awful. NWN2 turned me off with all the options and feats and whatnot. Probably better for a video game, but a waste of time (imo) for pen & paper where you just need some basic guidelines.

I remember when fireballs had volume and woe to the unprepared (or the foes of the prepared) who cast one in a hallway.

Do lightning bolts still reflect off the end of a hall? Always fun to have a mage with low wisdom who forgets to estimate the length of a hall before letting loose the lightning.

[Morat20]

IMO the 'fireball doesn't hurt attended objects' rule is more or less a necessary one from a sanity perspective. It would become ludicrous very quickly trying to track item damage on every piece of everyone's gear.

Our GM uses a standard "If it's very flammable, it catches on fire" rule -- like, for instance, fireballing the room full of Web or grease. (Someone in our party tossed a fireball THROUGH an fireplace that connected two rooms -- so it'd explode in the OTHER room, killing hte guys there before they could rush through the door. It blew up the wall, because the 'other room' was where they were boiling oil for the castle defenses...).

For people, the GM is of the mind that someone only catches on fire from a bad reflex save, and even then you can just choose to drop and roll. Item damage only occurs if you ignore the fact that you're on fire to keep fighting.

Acid's a bit different, since the "drop to the dirt and roll" response is hugely ineffective.

Mostly damage from fireballs and the like is purely cosmetic, but he's got some good rule of thumb stuff for things like "I want to use my spell to do X" -- he's fond of creative uses of things. I think a good GM knows when to bother with such things, and when just to handwave it as flavor.

[Polysorbate80]

I'm interested in suggestions regarding the targeting of those AoE spells, from a DM standpoint.

Specifically, it bothers me when the finger-wagglers start fussing over the placement of something like a fireball.  One, it bogs things down.  Two, they expect pinpoint precision on the placement when they're shooting at a particular point in space, often in poor visibility, usually through a pack of enemies and allies, so that they can always have optimal effect.  Yes, hitting the most enemies possible while minimizing friendly fire is a good thing, but I'd like there to be at least a little challenge to it.

Templates would help the first part, but not the second.  I'd like to implement some sort of "to hit" roll for targetting under such circumstances; or are there any other ideas? 

Or am I just being too picky?

[Ratman_tf]

Yeah, you don't want to nerf fireballs by saying they light everything on fire, but I don't like the gooniness of saying they don't set things on fire evar.

Plus, fire is how you get rid of giant spider webs! 

[Rendakor]

From a 3.5e standpoint, rolling to hit a square with a throwing weapon is a ranged touch attack with AC 10. You could use that as a starting point, modifying the AC of the square based on conditions (lighting, visibility due to cover, etc). You could also require them to target the fireball ON a particular mob (although then you run into issues with hitting the mob, where it explodes if you miss, etc.). The other issue is that if you miss your target square, you'd need another roll to see where it ended up which just brings things back to "bogged down". It also servers as a nerf to one of the biggest strengths of magic users, and the best source of AOE damage. The easier solution would probably be to stop sending huge packs of enemies at your party if it's such a big deal, or use creatures that surround your party (flanking, tumble, etc) so that AOE spells are guaranteed to hit the PCs as well.

[Ingmar]

Requiring to hit rolls for effects that already allow saving throws puts them into double jeopardy territory, not a fan of the idea personally.

[Sky]

Requiring to hit rolls for effects that already allow saving throws puts them into double jeopardy territory, not a fan of the idea personally.

I would disagree with that one. One is pre-effect and the other is post-effect (seeing whether the effect affects, if you will). I'd rather have that than some kind of pinpoint accuracy where a wizard somehow knows the exact point of effect and the exact fringes of said effect (unless he's got a 19+ Int, I guess!).

[Morat20]

My regular GM usually used a spellcraft or concentration check to do pinpoint accuracy. Mostly spellcraft, the general justification being that if you wanted the AoE to go off in exactly the right point you'd have to bring to mind all the elements of the spell, your experience and understanding with it, and use that to place it. We looked into ranged touch attacks (like rays) but decided all you needed was LoS for things like fireballs.

Doing that in combat is a bit iffy, but we handwaved it as being "very familiar with the mannerisms of that spell" with a hint of "magical intent". Spellcraft was just a check to see if you knew the spell well enough to place it for maximum effect.

I think the base check was a 15 for standard "put it in the right spot not to fry my teammates" in combat. Concentration checks required if you were being threatened (in addition to the one to cast in combat anyways).

[Ingmar]

Requiring to hit rolls for effects that already allow saving throws puts them into double jeopardy territory, not a fan of the idea personally.

I would disagree with that one. One is pre-effect and the other is post-effect (seeing whether the effect affects, if you will). I'd rather have that than some kind of pinpoint accuracy where a wizard somehow knows the exact point of effect and the exact fringes of said effect (unless he's got a 19+ Int, I guess!).

What I mean is it gives the spell two chances to fail where most effects in the game only have one chance to fail. Either you get a save against it, or you need to roll to hit with it, not both (there are some rare exceptions). That takes what is already typically a fairly suboptimal choice for a wizard in 3.5 (vanilla damage area spells) and makes it relatively that much worse compared to the big save-or-lose spell effects. It isn't a good call balance-wise in other words.

It also probably won't speed anything up, since adding an extra mechanic to resolve on top of the player finding the right spot to target something in the first place isn't going to make it faster.

[Sheepherder]

Templates would help the first part, but not the second.  I'd like to implement some sort of "to hit" roll for targetting under such circumstances; or are there any other ideas? 

Or am I just being too picky?

 

[Ingmar]

That doesn't solve his issue of getting annoyed at the player taking too long to figure out where to center the burst. (Not that I think there exists a rules solution for that sort of thing that won't just end up making it worse somehow.)

[Polysorbate80]

I play 3.5/pathfinder, not 4e.  I can't remember what "Area burst 3 within 20 squares" is supposed to mean.

Otherwise, to clarify, time is less the issue than "I want to use a spell that makes a big-ass fire burn this monster, but not the person it's engaged in melee with, 100% of the time without fail"

I use an "oops you missed" house rule for teleportation in this campaign.  It does add time, but I clearly spelled out in the campaign rules that teleportation was unreliable, and they live with the consequences of the occasional misfire.  Or, should I say, they've lived so far....  The party ranger once got lazy and asked the bard to dimension door the two of them to the top of a cliff; they wound up 200' above it instead 

Now that I think about it, the two of them have an amazing propensity for somehow falling long distances.

[Ingmar]

I find that players find lots of ways to fail on their own without needing to add more ways for the dice to fuck them in the name of realism. YMMV.

[Sky]

a fairly suboptimal choice for a wizard in 3.5

1st edition. It's all I've played, though I've got the core books for 2nd and 3rd.

[Ingmar]

Yeah in 1e that stuff is king since monsters have so many fewer hit points. (And the adventures tend to have things like a room full of 57 trolls.)

[Rendakor]

Otherwise, to clarify, time is less the issue than "I want to use a spell that makes a big-ass fire burn this monster, but not the person it's engaged in melee with, 100% of the time without fail"

I'm not sure why using fireball to target one monster while avoiding one PC in melee is such a huge deal. However, the easier fix would be to simply change your encounters rather than monkeying around with mechanics to nerf magic users.

[Polysorbate80]

It's not that much of a problem, or shouldn't be.  I like players who use spells creatively--it offers me at least as much chance to get even with them as it causes me troubles.  The ranger I mentioned who regularly falls from heights?  He once had water walking on, to float above the water to evade a monster's tremorsense.  A few rounds later he found himself falling into the ocean, thinking he was going to get the damage cut by falling into water--forgetting that his water walking spell would cause him to come to a sudden halt just above the water's surface  

What irks me is when they treat the fireball as solution to all problems.  I sometimes get sick of the answer to the question "what are you going to do" being "do I have any fireballs left?  Oh yeah, I cast fireball".  Or whatever the spell is, it isn't just fireball.

Edit:  I guess it does bother me a little bit that they never misplace one.  Melee fighters miss.  Archers miss, and really their arrows should go somewhere but I understand letting that sort of slide.  A few inches off with a 40' globe of fire?  Seems like that could fuck someone's day over pretty good.

[Sheepherder]

I play 3.5/pathfinder, not 4e.  I can't remember what "Area burst 3 within 20 squares" is supposed to mean.

20 square range, 3 square radius.  I was more hinting at the fact that another game system already has you roll to hit with fireball, hence: 

Use a hex grid and a set of divider calipers.

[Rendakor]

Melee characters miss, archers miss, monsters save vs fireball (or whatever the spell is). There are very few things in the game that don't require any check at all to land, but in 3.5e rules avoiding AOEs is a reflex save not a to-hit roll. As Ingmar said above, there are few mechanics in the game that allow two chances to miss.

There's a variant in one of the splat books (Unearthed Arcana maybe; the details can be found here on the SRD) that, among other things, allows casters to roll the enemy saving throws. You could implement that, and allow the usual caveat of "Player rolls a natural 1 and bad/hilarious things happen."

[Polysorbate80]

I think what some of you may be focusing on is allowing the fireball to miss the monsters.  That's not the case, and would rarely happen even if the player's aim was a few feet off. I'm happy if the player is able to hit all 66 gnolls in that room in the demonweb pits with one blast.  I'm not trying to nerf the mages.

What I miss is the possibility of the trigger-happy mage having to explain to the slightly singed party meatshield why their aim wasn't just six more inches to the left.....

[Ingmar]

Well, that's what I mean about letting the players find their own ways to fail, though. Adding a random element to AOE targeting is another tick in the pile of random events that can lead to a TPK or whatever.

If you really want to do it though just require an attack roll or spellcraft check to hit the target square, and use the grenade-like weapon scatter rules if they miss.

[Polysorbate80]

I like having a few random events--but if I were to implement it, it would have to be a common enough occurence for people not to feel unfairly singled out when it happened, but rare enough to be interesting.

I'm not sure where to set the chances for that to be the case, so I doubt I'll actually do it.  Plus, general consensus seems to be against it. 

Thanks for the feedback :)

[Lantyssa]

Our mages solved the targeting problem by always aiming near me.  Fortunately I had good saves, and she often fried herself, too, but optimal targeting never slowed us down...