I would really like an answer/thoughts/rules reference on this question. My playgroup has discussed this for many years and haven't been able to agree on how it should be played. How accurate can you place a fireball in a combat situation? The spell says it has a range of 150ft and a radius of 20ft and that it explodes at a point the caster chooses. We normally plays with a grid and miniatures so it easy to measure up how far away characters and monsters are from each other. The problem I have is that often a player casts a fireball and tell me (the DM) that he places it so it only hits the monsters and not any of the rest of the party. The player means that he can pinpoint the location of the detonation so its only covers the monster and not one or more from the party that is in melee combat against the monsters. lets say a mage is 120ft behind a fighter who is fighting and orc in melee combat. 15ft to the right the of the fighter a cleric is fighting another orc in melee combat. Remember that in combat even thou each character occupy a 5 ft square they are fighting within each other areas( a monk for example has to have arms and legs into the monsters square to be able to hurt it). So withing the 6 second time frame that is the mages round, he must cast the spell and measure the distance to the fighter, the cleric and then find the exact point 140ft away that makes the fireball only damage the monsters and not the fighter and cleric. Combat is chaotic and shouldn't be an exact sience. I feel it ruins some of the game, takes out some of the randomness and magic when something that in normal circumstances is extremely difficult. try outside on a football field or in a forest with lots of obstacles with friends and see how accurate you can be. My bet is that your friends would be fried or the monster escapes the fireball most of the times.
I understand the need for game mechanics to be easy and as DM i can always rules how i see it, and of course D&D isn't real life, but i would love to get feedback on how other groups solve these kind of spells or an official comment.
On the 19march Lames Heack did a spotlight on fireball where he writes "If you can't Sculpt Spells, you need to be careful in order to avoid scorching allies, burning important bridges (or load-bearing wooden beams... that's a bad one), melting golden treasure, or otherwise causing collateral damage." but when would that ever happen unless you decide to do it on purpose since you can measure out exactly the area of damage. And what about 9th lvl spell meteor swarm has this spell the same issues
I get where you're coming from and especially on a grid you often get situations like this. It's the whole "explosions do more that just light up stuff" that is also misrepresented in most movies. You have shockwaves, heat dispersion, interaction with different volumes of space (what would a 20ft explosion do in a 10x10ft room?). However, if you start to take those things into account, you often open up a can of worms that is difficult to close. What happens to cone attacks in a straight corridor? Can I boil water with burning hands to make tea?
Think of it this way; a wizard is a very high Intelligence caster, so he could analyse the situation quick enough (like Sherlock Holmes) to assess what needs to happen. Therefore you can use the rules as written.
If you want to shake things up, you could do the following:
fireball targets a point. On a grid this transfers to chosing a corner of a square on the grid. Make the player choose a square and roll a d4 to see which corner is the center point of the spell. If you apply this when it is dramatic (like your example) and presto you've got a somewhat random but not extremely unfair way to determine where the spell is targeted without taking too much control from the player. Hope it helps and let me know what you think :)
The answer is pretty much right there in the spell description:
The spell says it has a range of 150ft and a radius of 20ft and that it explodes at a point the caster chooses.
So with that said, it is exactly that accurate. Now, once the player chooses a point, the fireball effect expands to fit the radius and hits any and all things in that area, whether they be friends, foes, or random objects. If the party is positioned such that none of them happen to be in the blast, great, none of them get hit. If however, there are party members in that radius, then they'll get hit unless the caster in question has Spell Sculpt and can adjust the area to avoid their allies.
It's pretty cut and dry.
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"The mongoose blew out its candle and was asleep in bed before the room went dark." —Llanowar fable
I believe there is no hard and fast rule to conclude on a topic such as this.
By the rules alone, there is no randomness or fluctuation on a spell's area or range (unless otherwise noted, of course), and when a spell asks the caster to choose a point in space or a target, it's assumed to be accurate.
How accurate depends on the DM (although I'd say this should be a pre-discussed, informed decision, because it only affects the casters of the party). I've seen DMs going with non-grid positioning ("Tell me where you cast it." "Between those two orcs.") and I've heard of DMs that introduce a chance for inaccuracy.
Personally, I'd avoid the above examples, because you'd be double-dipping on penalties for area effects - they already have to decide on an ideal area location and go through a possible saving throw. Make them also inconsistently a threat to allies, and it may be too much.
Besides, the problem with spells such as Fireball doesn't become apparent in the ideal situation of "our party over here, the enemies gathered together over there, so I cast it in a way that it doesn't reach us". The issues with Fireball are more often encountered in situations such as "the fighter is surrounded by seven orcs... do I fireball all of them (and him), or only get three of them to avoid him?" or "it's a 20x20 room. I can't fireball without getting everyone in it, including us..." or even "the skeleton warriors are practically standing on the gold pile." And there are similar situations that are valid for other spells as well, making the spell choice an important decision as well.
Besides, I'd assume the same training goes into aiming spells and gauging their area that goes to other classes and their aiming. A ranger may hit or miss a target, but they never fail to hit a 5-foot square outside of extraordinary circumstances.
As such, my personal suggestion is "let it be as accurate as the player bothers to describe it or position it on the grid". It's a part of strategic combat (which I imagine is a big part of your battles if you're playing on a grid), and the casters of area spells have enough to keep in mind about their positioning without worrying about missing their mark and somehow affecting allies (or bridges, or gold, or what have you) that they were certain would be outside their affected area.
I remember in the old days with 2nd edition we had many of those discussions about how spells would react, fireball in a small hallway would will perhaps 100ft of hallway and lightning bolts that bounced all around in the room in different angels.
To be a wizard are hopefully over standard intelligence :) and can analyze situations very well. So i agree with you with that, but i believe that we miss out on very much fun game play with certainties. We often have some of our funniest games when things doesn't go as planned, and its not because the GM just tweaks the encounter. I liked your random d4 to see which corner to center the spell. It gives room for a small uncertainty.
I remember in the old days with 2nd edition we had many of those discussions about how spells would react, fireball in a small hallway would will perhaps 100ft of hallway and lightning bolts that bounced all around in the room in different angels.
To be a wizard are hopefully over standard intelligence :) and can analyze situations very well. So i agree with you with that, but i believe that we miss out on very much fun game play with certainties. We often have some of our funniest games when things doesn't go as planned, and its not because the GM just tweaks the encounter. I liked your random d4 to see which corner to center the spell. It gives room for a small uncertainty.
You're welcome. If you and your group like such randomness you could go further and let the caster choose a square then roll a d8 to determine which adjacent square is truly targeted and then a d4 to determine the point as above :P But that might be a bit too much.
I have no problem with the mage choosing the exact point of detonation. What you are saying is that he has total control in feet and inches of how far everything in his sight is from each other. So he can say that that the pint of origin shall be at the corner of a bookshelf but he can know exactly if the fighter is 20 or 21 feet away feet from that corner. Thus having the fighter caught in the blast or not.
Hi Onyx and thank you for your thoughts in the issue.
I do agree that the rules must be clear from the start if there are going to be randomness involved with such things as aiming. And yes combat and strategic playing is a big part of our battles, we don't do much of voice acting or play our characters personalities to each other. We plainly tell each other what the characters do. In he campaign we play now, we use the standard rules no randomness and standard critical damages (which means you can never die from 1 hit after you gain a few levels). In the last campaign we played we used a more dangerous critical table resulting in an early death of our barbarian. He had chosen the totem of the bear path resulting that he had almost 200 effective HP because of his resistance to all but except psychic while raging. In combat he was raging and was going to have to run a couple of rounds to save one in his party. To not loose his rage he decided to take a hit from a low lvl opponent while he was running thru his threatening area. The low lvl opponent rolled a 20. Normally this would never be a danger to the barbarian, (perhaps a 1d8x2+3 but because of the random critical table we used and not the standard double dice damage the result ended with him loosing his head. ( he rolled another 20 and a 90+ on the crit table so it was an epic moment:) Inn my opinion an opponent should always have a chance to get a fatal blow as long as they have weapon or spells that can damage them, even thou it was a 20x20x90=36000 chance like the above.
I have no problem with the mage choosing the exact point of detonation. What you are saying is that he has total control in feet and inches of how far everything in his sight is from each other. So he can say that that the pint of origin shall be at the corner of a bookshelf but he can know exactly if the fighter is 20 or 21 feet away feet from that corner. Thus having the fighter caught in the blast or not.
No, I'm saying that he can choose where to drop the spell and the game rules control how far away everything is fro one another. You play on a grid with miniatures, and that setup comes with very structured rules about positioning and space. Everything is measured in five-foot blocks and every spell effect is effectively square-shaped or angular. If you took a 20-foot radius circle and placed it over a 20-foot square there would be parts of that square that are technically not affected by the circle, but on a grid, that 5-foot square is considered to be in the area of effect of the spell, no matter how much of that circle covers that square. If no party member is in that 4x4 square block when Fireball goes off, then no party member gets hit. That is the logic of it. When using a grid, you are dealing in rounded 5-ft measurements. There is no "I shift it just like one-foot to the left to miss my friend."
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"The mongoose blew out its candle and was asleep in bed before the room went dark." —Llanowar fable
Everything is measured in five-foot blocks and every spell effect is effectively square-shaped or angular.
No, they're not. The DMG says you follow the area of effect's normal rules. A cylinder is still a cylinder and a cone is still a cone. The two rules for area of effects on a grid are that the point of origin has to be placed on a grid intersection if the spell targets a point in space, and if the area is circular it has to cover at least half a square. But nothing stops you from shooting a lightning bolt at an 80 degree angle and hitting a square that the line just barely covers.
Sure, but line spells are easily adjudicated by like, an inch-wide ruler. You put the ruler between the caster and the target and anyone the ruler touches gets hit.
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"The mongoose blew out its candle and was asleep in bed before the room went dark." —Llanowar fable
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Hi
I would really like an answer/thoughts/rules reference on this question. My playgroup has discussed this for many years and haven't been able to agree on how it should be played. How accurate can you place a fireball in a combat situation? The spell says it has a range of 150ft and a radius of 20ft and that it explodes at a point the caster chooses. We normally plays with a grid and miniatures so it easy to measure up how far away characters and monsters are from each other. The problem I have is that often a player casts a fireball and tell me (the DM) that he places it so it only hits the monsters and not any of the rest of the party. The player means that he can pinpoint the location of the detonation so its only covers the monster and not one or more from the party that is in melee combat against the monsters. lets say a mage is 120ft behind a fighter who is fighting and orc in melee combat. 15ft to the right the of the fighter a cleric is fighting another orc in melee combat. Remember that in combat even thou each character occupy a 5 ft square they are fighting within each other areas( a monk for example has to have arms and legs into the monsters square to be able to hurt it). So withing the 6 second time frame that is the mages round, he must cast the spell and measure the distance to the fighter, the cleric and then find the exact point 140ft away that makes the fireball only damage the monsters and not the fighter and cleric. Combat is chaotic and shouldn't be an exact sience. I feel it ruins some of the game, takes out some of the randomness and magic when something that in normal circumstances is extremely difficult. try outside on a football field or in a forest with lots of obstacles with friends and see how accurate you can be. My bet is that your friends would be fried or the monster escapes the fireball most of the times.
I understand the need for game mechanics to be easy and as DM i can always rules how i see it, and of course D&D isn't real life, but i would love to get feedback on how other groups solve these kind of spells or an official comment.
On the 19march Lames Heack did a spotlight on fireball where he writes "If you can't Sculpt Spells, you need to be careful in order to avoid scorching allies, burning important bridges (or load-bearing wooden beams... that's a bad one), melting golden treasure, or otherwise causing collateral damage." but when would that ever happen unless you decide to do it on purpose since you can measure out exactly the area of damage. And what about 9th lvl spell meteor swarm has this spell the same issues
https://www.dndbeyond.com/posts/177-spell-spotlight-fireball?page=2
I get where you're coming from and especially on a grid you often get situations like this. It's the whole "explosions do more that just light up stuff" that is also misrepresented in most movies. You have shockwaves, heat dispersion, interaction with different volumes of space (what would a 20ft explosion do in a 10x10ft room?). However, if you start to take those things into account, you often open up a can of worms that is difficult to close. What happens to cone attacks in a straight corridor? Can I boil water with burning hands to make tea?
Think of it this way; a wizard is a very high Intelligence caster, so he could analyse the situation quick enough (like Sherlock Holmes) to assess what needs to happen. Therefore you can use the rules as written.
If you want to shake things up, you could do the following:
fireball targets a point. On a grid this transfers to chosing a corner of a square on the grid. Make the player choose a square and roll a d4 to see which corner is the center point of the spell. If you apply this when it is dramatic (like your example) and presto you've got a somewhat random but not extremely unfair way to determine where the spell is targeted without taking too much control from the player. Hope it helps and let me know what you think :)
Subclass: Dwarven Defender - Dragonborn Paragon
Feats: Artificer Apprentice
Monsters: Sheep - Spellbreaker Warforged Titan
Magic Items: Whipier - Ring of Secret Storage - Collar of the Guardian
Monster template: Skeletal Creature
The answer is pretty much right there in the spell description:
So with that said, it is exactly that accurate. Now, once the player chooses a point, the fireball effect expands to fit the radius and hits any and all things in that area, whether they be friends, foes, or random objects. If the party is positioned such that none of them happen to be in the blast, great, none of them get hit. If however, there are party members in that radius, then they'll get hit unless the caster in question has Spell Sculpt and can adjust the area to avoid their allies.
It's pretty cut and dry.
I believe there is no hard and fast rule to conclude on a topic such as this.
By the rules alone, there is no randomness or fluctuation on a spell's area or range (unless otherwise noted, of course), and when a spell asks the caster to choose a point in space or a target, it's assumed to be accurate.
How accurate depends on the DM (although I'd say this should be a pre-discussed, informed decision, because it only affects the casters of the party). I've seen DMs going with non-grid positioning ("Tell me where you cast it." "Between those two orcs.") and I've heard of DMs that introduce a chance for inaccuracy.
Personally, I'd avoid the above examples, because you'd be double-dipping on penalties for area effects - they already have to decide on an ideal area location and go through a possible saving throw. Make them also inconsistently a threat to allies, and it may be too much.
Besides, the problem with spells such as Fireball doesn't become apparent in the ideal situation of "our party over here, the enemies gathered together over there, so I cast it in a way that it doesn't reach us". The issues with Fireball are more often encountered in situations such as "the fighter is surrounded by seven orcs... do I fireball all of them (and him), or only get three of them to avoid him?" or "it's a 20x20 room. I can't fireball without getting everyone in it, including us..." or even "the skeleton warriors are practically standing on the gold pile." And there are similar situations that are valid for other spells as well, making the spell choice an important decision as well.
Besides, I'd assume the same training goes into aiming spells and gauging their area that goes to other classes and their aiming. A ranger may hit or miss a target, but they never fail to hit a 5-foot square outside of extraordinary circumstances.
As such, my personal suggestion is "let it be as accurate as the player bothers to describe it or position it on the grid". It's a part of strategic combat (which I imagine is a big part of your battles if you're playing on a grid), and the casters of area spells have enough to keep in mind about their positioning without worrying about missing their mark and somehow affecting allies (or bridges, or gold, or what have you) that they were certain would be outside their affected area.
Hi RAJdeBoer and thanks for your reply.
I remember in the old days with 2nd edition we had many of those discussions about how spells would react, fireball in a small hallway would will perhaps 100ft of hallway and lightning bolts that bounced all around in the room in different angels.
To be a wizard are hopefully over standard intelligence :) and can analyze situations very well. So i agree with you with that, but i believe that we miss out on very much fun game play with certainties. We often have some of our funniest games when things doesn't go as planned, and its not because the GM just tweaks the encounter. I liked your random d4 to see which corner to center the spell. It gives room for a small uncertainty.
Subclass: Dwarven Defender - Dragonborn Paragon
Feats: Artificer Apprentice
Monsters: Sheep - Spellbreaker Warforged Titan
Magic Items: Whipier - Ring of Secret Storage - Collar of the Guardian
Monster template: Skeletal Creature
Hi Metamongose
I have no problem with the mage choosing the exact point of detonation. What you are saying is that he has total control in feet and inches of how far everything in his sight is from each other. So he can say that that the pint of origin shall be at the corner of a bookshelf but he can know exactly if the fighter is 20 or 21 feet away feet from that corner. Thus having the fighter caught in the blast or not.
Hi Onyx and thank you for your thoughts in the issue.
I do agree that the rules must be clear from the start if there are going to be randomness involved with such things as aiming. And yes combat and strategic playing is a big part of our battles, we don't do much of voice acting or play our characters personalities to each other. We plainly tell each other what the characters do. In he campaign we play now, we use the standard rules no randomness and standard critical damages (which means you can never die from 1 hit after you gain a few levels). In the last campaign we played we used a more dangerous critical table resulting in an early death of our barbarian. He had chosen the totem of the bear path resulting that he had almost 200 effective HP because of his resistance to all but except psychic while raging. In combat he was raging and was going to have to run a couple of rounds to save one in his party. To not loose his rage he decided to take a hit from a low lvl opponent while he was running thru his threatening area. The low lvl opponent rolled a 20. Normally this would never be a danger to the barbarian, (perhaps a 1d8x2+3 but because of the random critical table we used and not the standard double dice damage the result ended with him loosing his head. ( he rolled another 20 and a 90+ on the crit table so it was an epic moment:) Inn my opinion an opponent should always have a chance to get a fatal blow as long as they have weapon or spells that can damage them, even thou it was a 20x20x90=36000 chance like the above.
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Yeah, but it doesn't snap to the grid or become all squares the way you were implying.
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Sure, but line spells are easily adjudicated by like, an inch-wide ruler. You put the ruler between the caster and the target and anyone the ruler touches gets hit.