When a large creature casts the cone - does it emanate from the point at the center of the creature, or from a side?
should be from its middle, but remember that the caster gets to choose if the point of origin for the cone counts as being inside the cone or not, so large spellcasters dont exactly risk scorching themselves that said having it eminate from a corner is reasonable
DMG says corner (or intersection of squares).
Areas of Effect
The area of effect of a spell, monster ability, or other feature must be translated onto squares or hexes to determine which potential targets are in the area and which aren’t.
Choose an intersection of squares or hexes as the point of origin of an area of effect, then follow its rules as normal. If an area of effect is circular and covers at least half a square, it affects that square.
The most important thing is to stay consistent.
I promise I don’t want to turn every thread into a complaint about D&D’s editing, but the fact that that’s in the DMG but not the PHB is criminal.
You have to remember that playing on a grid with squares is an option of the game. There are lots of people who play with Theater of the Mind or on gridless maps.
So no, it's certainly not an error of editing, and certainly not criminal, it's normal considering the intent of the game.
Weird that you consider the intent of the game to be as inscrutable as possible, but sure, I'll grant you that if that is indeed the intent, then omissions that create such a situation aren't errors.
I don't know how you can say the intent of the game is to not play with grids if it offers rules to play with grids. Obviously the intent of the game is to be flexible enough to play with or without grids.
With that being said, a surprising number of cone spells tell you exactly what part of the body they extend from. Hint: it isn't your center of mass.
We can argue about the intent of the game all day -- but I've made my point on that: the game is flexible (and likely more importantly, none of the other rules change when going between using and not using grids). The important point to the question asked is that no cone indicates that it starts from the interior of the creature, and the creature can choose to not affect themselves, indicating that it can start just beyond the caster, using a grid or not.
Spells that create cones or lines of effect that originate from you also have a range of self, indicating that the origin point of the spell's effect must be you (see “Areas of Effect” later in the this chapter).
A cone extends in a direction you choose from its point of origin. A cone's width at a given point along its length is equal to that point's distance from the point of origin. A cone's area of effect specifies its maximum length.
A cone's point of origin is not included in the cone's area of effect, unless you decide otherwise.
Seeing as the first rule doesn't specify your center of mass, just it must originate from 'you', it can therefore reasonably originate from any part of you. Seeing as the area a token represents on the table (be it with or without a grid) represents the area you can control (aka reach/interact with), it's reasonable that you can place the origin point of a cone anywhere within the token, including at its edge, as the area of the token represents the full range of area a creature can reasonably act from. Therefore you could have a cone originate from the center, the edge aimed outwards, or even the edge aimed back across the token,
At least that's based on my reading of the rules above
That logically makes sense, but citation for premise that "... centered from a point within range" has to be placed at an intersection instead of the center of a square? The PHB Section on areas of effect doesn't describe that....
Edit: Nvm, found it, you're right. Really wish the PHB had been written with grid-based play the default, and non-grid as the variant, would make it so much more straightforward to find rules...
But it is certainly easier to write "use this if you want" than "all those thing that mention squares and stuff, yeah, you can ignore that if you want but good luck on figuring out what that means or how to do it."
The fact that there's an optional rule in the DMG Chapter 8 to handle adjudicating areas of effect when you don't use miniatures, I think is sufficient to demonstrate that that isn't the "default" either. (Dndbeyond hyperlinks are a little sparse for the DMG, it's right above this.) The default is, "we didn't tell you how to adjudicate distance in combat in the PHB, so figure it out yourself or use one of these optional systems", which is a pretty weird choice to have made no matter how you look at it.
There is no way to "theater of the mind" an accurate area of effect measured in feet, unless you are "theater of the mind"ing a grid. On a field with 10 combatants dispersed across a battlefield, I don't care how imaginitive you are, you do not have any basis, without a grid in your mind's eye, to tell me the lengths of the triangle sides drawn between combatants A, B, and C. You can certainly "rely on your descriptions to visualize" their rough configuration, and make a judgment call about how many are fit into a 30-foot radius effect... but you're not really measuring 30 feet, you're thinking in terms of "near", "far", "close enough," etc.
5E doesn't have spell descriptions that provide "AOE: Large" or something like that, there are 20 foot effects and 30 foot effects and 15 foot effects, and the "rules" require those distances to be respected. There is a variant provided (which I linked in my last post) to throw that out, and instead just sort of fudge how many enemies a small/medium/big effect might capture, but that is not the "default" rule. The default rule is to care whether an enemy is 10, 15, or 20 feet away.
Grid based play isn't the only way you can measure that. You can also use a tape measurer, or a hex system. But "theater of the mind" cannot measure that, only replace it. And measuring is the rule.
Everybody has their preference to how to run a game and, thereby combat.
When I first started playing D&D I had a bunch of minis but they were mostly decoration and for showing marching order. The games I played in were TotM.This went on for quite a long time - through high school. I don't remember needing clear cut measurements.
During college I was introduced to Warhammer and I took a long side-trip into wargaming. Now, I like to use battlemats and minis because I have a long history with war games. It helps me to visualize tactical situations and be clear to myself and my players where everybody is. I'm not confident enough to come up with distances and spacing just in my head that would be clear enough (to me) so that my players could make good tactical decisions. Tracking six PCs and maybe a dozen bad guys in variable terrain is too much for my brain to handle. Sure, I could make it up - I did that from 3rd grade until I graduated high school, but now it wouldn't feel honest to me.
Some folks are just better at one than the other and both ways or a combination of the two is just fine.
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"real life is a super high CR."
-OboeLauren
"............anybody got any potatoes? We could drop a potato in each hole an' see which ones get viciously mauled by horrible monsters?"
There is no way to "theater of the mind" an accurate area of effect measured in feet, unless you are "theater of the mind"ing a grid. On a field with 10 combatants dispersed across a battlefield, I don't care how imaginitive you are, you do not have any basis, without a grid in your mind's eye, to tell me the lengths of the triangle sides drawn between combatants A, B, and C. You can certainly "rely on your descriptions to visualize" their rough configuration, and make a judgment call about how many are fit into a 30-foot radius effect... but you're not really measuring 30 feet, you're thinking in terms of "near", "far", "close enough," etc.
5E doesn't have spell descriptions that provide "AOE: Large" or something like that, there are 20 foot effects and 30 foot effects and 15 foot effects, and the "rules" require those distances to be respected. There is a variant provided (which I linked in my last post) to throw that out, and instead just sort of fudge how many enemies a small/medium/big effect might capture, but that is not the "default" rule. The default rule is to care whether an enemy is 10, 15, or 20 feet away.
Grid based play isn't the only way you can measure that. You can also use a tape measurer, or a hex system. But "theater of the mind" cannot measure that, only replace it. And measuring is the rule.
Prove it. Show me one place in the rules that tells you that you have to measure precisely distances? Nowhere in the rules does it say that you need to measure anything. Nowhere in the examples of play is there anything measured and, as everything in the game, it is always judgment calls from the DM who arbitrates. The only thing that you need to do is estimate if anything in particular is within range, that's all. Again, the section that you have provided is very clear: "In combat, players can often rely on your descriptions to visualize where their characters are in relation to their surroundings and their enemies." Just visualisation and estimation, no measuring, this is the default for the game.
The spell descriptions (as in, the entire entry, not just the descriptive part) really imply you need to measure precise distances, since they describe the spells as having precise areas of effect. A Fireball's range and area are not described as "long enough to hit anything you can reasonably see" and "big enough to get a bunch of enemies", they're given as "150 feet" and "a 20 foot radius sphere", very precise distances. Sure, you're free to ignore those precise measurements, or use them as guides, as described in the book as "guidance" when "you're not using miniatures or another visual aid", but the language used pretty clearly shows you're meant to use the actual distances provided, unless it's "difficult to determine". (Quotes are from the actual rules, from the DMG passage linked previously.)
You guys do realise that on a square grid, a circular AoE radius should actually translates into a square shape and not a circle, because we ignore Pythagoras.
You guys do realise that on a square grid, a circular AoE radius should actually translates into a square shape and not a circle, because we ignore Pythagoras.
I use the 1-2-1 diagonal rule. No square circles in my games.
You guys do realise that on a square grid, a circular AoE radius should actually translates into a square shape and not a circle, because we ignore Pythagoras.
Grid play is an optional rule, I've never played at a table that used it and didn't use the other optional rule that makes the diagonal an extra 5 ft for every 10.
Again, we had fights teleporting across the backs of dragons flying in the astral plane, no amount of physical or computer medium is going to be able to implement this.
We've done this with minis. I still have the dragons I made out of cardboard. Shortly after we had a combat that started on a bridge, continued in free fall when the bridge collapsed, and ended on earth motes colliding and breaking up as they were being swept along in an astral current. If you can imagine it, you can figure out a way to represent it physically.
Not to take away from TotM - I have done it before and support anyone's right to run a game that way - but a lot of its proponents cite limitations of physical media that simply are not there in my experience.
Shouldn't your point of origin be a 5ft tile, rather than being on the lines? I feel like since each tile is usually 5ft, then 15ft would be three tiles in front of you, otherwise how could you got someone 5ft away?
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I promise I don’t want to turn every thread into a complaint about D&D’s editing, but the fact that that’s in the DMG but not the PHB is criminal.
Weird that you consider the intent of the game to be as inscrutable as possible, but sure, I'll grant you that if that is indeed the intent, then omissions that create such a situation aren't errors.
I don't know how you can say the intent of the game is to not play with grids if it offers rules to play with grids. Obviously the intent of the game is to be flexible enough to play with or without grids.
With that being said, a surprising number of cone spells tell you exactly what part of the body they extend from. Hint: it isn't your center of mass.
We can argue about the intent of the game all day -- but I've made my point on that: the game is flexible (and likely more importantly, none of the other rules change when going between using and not using grids). The important point to the question asked is that no cone indicates that it starts from the interior of the creature, and the creature can choose to not affect themselves, indicating that it can start just beyond the caster, using a grid or not.
Seeing as the first rule doesn't specify your center of mass, just it must originate from 'you', it can therefore reasonably originate from any part of you. Seeing as the area a token represents on the table (be it with or without a grid) represents the area you can control (aka reach/interact with), it's reasonable that you can place the origin point of a cone anywhere within the token, including at its edge, as the area of the token represents the full range of area a creature can reasonably act from. Therefore you could have a cone originate from the center, the edge aimed outwards, or even the edge aimed back across the token,
At least that's based on my reading of the rules above
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If the blue dot represents the caster, I'm confused because a medium sized creature can't stand in the middle of a 2x2 area (on a corner of a space)
This has been discussed: Cones originate from intersections of squares, even if their casters aren't standing there.
All AOEs shapes originate from corners.
That logically makes sense, but citation for premise that "... centered from a point within range" has to be placed at an intersection instead of the center of a square? The PHB Section on areas of effect doesn't describe that....
Edit: Nvm, found it, you're right. Really wish the PHB had been written with grid-based play the default, and non-grid as the variant, would make it so much more straightforward to find rules...
dndbeyond.com forum tags
I'm going to make this way harder than it needs to be.
But it is certainly easier to write "use this if you want" than "all those thing that mention squares and stuff, yeah, you can ignore that if you want but good luck on figuring out what that means or how to do it."
The fact that there's an optional rule in the DMG Chapter 8 to handle adjudicating areas of effect when you don't use miniatures, I think is sufficient to demonstrate that that isn't the "default" either. (Dndbeyond hyperlinks are a little sparse for the DMG, it's right above this.) The default is, "we didn't tell you how to adjudicate distance in combat in the PHB, so figure it out yourself or use one of these optional systems", which is a pretty weird choice to have made no matter how you look at it.
dndbeyond.com forum tags
I'm going to make this way harder than it needs to be.
There is no way to "theater of the mind" an accurate area of effect measured in feet, unless you are "theater of the mind"ing a grid. On a field with 10 combatants dispersed across a battlefield, I don't care how imaginitive you are, you do not have any basis, without a grid in your mind's eye, to tell me the lengths of the triangle sides drawn between combatants A, B, and C. You can certainly "rely on your descriptions to visualize" their rough configuration, and make a judgment call about how many are fit into a 30-foot radius effect... but you're not really measuring 30 feet, you're thinking in terms of "near", "far", "close enough," etc.
5E doesn't have spell descriptions that provide "AOE: Large" or something like that, there are 20 foot effects and 30 foot effects and 15 foot effects, and the "rules" require those distances to be respected. There is a variant provided (which I linked in my last post) to throw that out, and instead just sort of fudge how many enemies a small/medium/big effect might capture, but that is not the "default" rule. The default rule is to care whether an enemy is 10, 15, or 20 feet away.
Grid based play isn't the only way you can measure that. You can also use a tape measurer, or a hex system. But "theater of the mind" cannot measure that, only replace it. And measuring is the rule.
dndbeyond.com forum tags
I'm going to make this way harder than it needs to be.
Hey look, rules for how area of effect work in TotM in the combat section of the DMG: https://www.dndbeyond.com/sources/dmg/running-the-game#AdjudicatingAreasofEffect
I think it is assumed to be the default, but of course there are also rules for miniatures and grids, so they were ready for both.
Everybody has their preference to how to run a game and, thereby combat.
When I first started playing D&D I had a bunch of minis but they were mostly decoration and for showing marching order. The games I played in were TotM.This went on for quite a long time - through high school. I don't remember needing clear cut measurements.
During college I was introduced to Warhammer and I took a long side-trip into wargaming. Now, I like to use battlemats and minis because I have a long history with war games. It helps me to visualize tactical situations and be clear to myself and my players where everybody is. I'm not confident enough to come up with distances and spacing just in my head that would be clear enough (to me) so that my players could make good tactical decisions. Tracking six PCs and maybe a dozen bad guys in variable terrain is too much for my brain to handle. Sure, I could make it up - I did that from 3rd grade until I graduated high school, but now it wouldn't feel honest to me.
Some folks are just better at one than the other and both ways or a combination of the two is just fine.
"Sooner or later, your Players are going to smash your railroad into a sandbox."
-Vedexent
"real life is a super high CR."
-OboeLauren
"............anybody got any potatoes? We could drop a potato in each hole an' see which ones get viciously mauled by horrible monsters?"
-Ilyara Thundertale
The spell descriptions (as in, the entire entry, not just the descriptive part) really imply you need to measure precise distances, since they describe the spells as having precise areas of effect. A Fireball's range and area are not described as "long enough to hit anything you can reasonably see" and "big enough to get a bunch of enemies", they're given as "150 feet" and "a 20 foot radius sphere", very precise distances. Sure, you're free to ignore those precise measurements, or use them as guides, as described in the book as "guidance" when "you're not using miniatures or another visual aid", but the language used pretty clearly shows you're meant to use the actual distances provided, unless it's "difficult to determine". (Quotes are from the actual rules, from the DMG passage linked previously.)
You guys do realise that on a square grid, a circular AoE radius should actually translates into a square shape and not a circle, because we ignore Pythagoras.
Attack: [roll]3d20dl2+6[/roll] Damage: [roll](if([roll:-1:critical], =0, 1d8, 2{1d8}.expand()))+4[/roll] Sneakattack: [roll](if([roll:-2:critical], =0, 2d6, 2{2d6}.expand()))[/roll]I use the 1-2-1 diagonal rule. No square circles in my games.
Grid play is an optional rule, I've never played at a table that used it and didn't use the other optional rule that makes the diagonal an extra 5 ft for every 10.
We've done this with minis. I still have the dragons I made out of cardboard. Shortly after we had a combat that started on a bridge, continued in free fall when the bridge collapsed, and ended on earth motes colliding and breaking up as they were being swept along in an astral current. If you can imagine it, you can figure out a way to represent it physically.
Not to take away from TotM - I have done it before and support anyone's right to run a game that way - but a lot of its proponents cite limitations of physical media that simply are not there in my experience.
My homebrew subclasses (full list here)
(Artificer) Swordmage | Glasswright | (Barbarian) Path of the Savage Embrace
(Bard) College of Dance | (Fighter) Warlord | Cannoneer
(Monk) Way of the Elements | (Ranger) Blade Dancer
(Rogue) DaggerMaster | Inquisitor | (Sorcerer) Riftwalker | Spellfist
(Warlock) The Swarm
Shouldn't your point of origin be a 5ft tile, rather than being on the lines? I feel like since each tile is usually 5ft, then 15ft would be three tiles in front of you, otherwise how could you got someone 5ft away?