I love the War Priest class as it allows me great fighting skills & fantastic array of offensive, defensive and healing spells. My favourite is Spirit Guardians.
So heres what happened in last nights session:
We came across a Roper and i had Spirit Guardians up already. There was a turn where both the main body and tentacles were within the area of SGs effect. If it launched a tentacle at another player through my SG area effect.... do both the tentace and the beast take damage? In this case the tentacles only has 10hp and wouldve died before grappling other players The DM ruled no but they both have HP so whats the story there?
And one other scenario during the same game we were fighting umberhulks and i had my same SGs on but the were trying to burrow through the rock to get to us. The tunnel was 5ft wide where i was and the Umberhulk had entered the furious angel zone of the SGs. Because they are spirits and therefore immaterial do they still damage the umberhulks where he is burrowing?
Sorry if these sorts of questions has been asked before. But want to know what the rulings on those 2 things are coz i use SGs quite a bit.
Officially, the rulings are whatever your DM says. On the first point, I would agree with them because the tentacle is not a creature - it is a part of a creature which can be attacked specifically if you specifically target it. The Roper has already taken damage from your spell, and that spell deals damage to a creature only once per turn. In the second scenario I would also agree with your DM. My understanding is that no spell effect extends through total cover unless it specifically says that it does. From the PHB: "A spell's effect expands in straight lines from the point of origin. If no unblocked straight line extends from the point of origin to a location within the area of effect, that location isn't included in the spell's area. To block one of these imaginary lines, an obstruction must provide total cover". I can't think what spells do penetrate total cover, but they are few and far between.
Sacred flame ignores cover, but requires that you can see the target, which means you would need a way to see something behind a closed door. Possible, but a challenge.
If a roper's tentacle entered your SG zone, then the creature might take damage. The rules get iffy here because the tentacle is actually just an attack with range 50ft; it doesn't clearly indicate that the roper's extended body is now located in all the spaces between you and it, but logic dictates that the tentacle must reach in to get you, so there the roper is. Whether the damage would go to the creature or to the tentacle is also not really layed out in the rules, so personally I would go with whichever seems cooler - or I'd just let the player decide which they would rather. There are not really enough tentacle creatures around to come up with a hard and fast rule. Big tentacles like a Kraken I would lean towards the tentacle taking the hit, roper size and I would lean towards creature. Cutting a roper tentacle is really a means of escaping the thing, not an actual feasible way of hurting it.
Correct: but the tentacles aren't "creatures", they have HP as an object (much like a lasso, net or set of manacles). Spirit Guardians don't do anything against "objects", and thus would be unhelpful if you were lasso'd, netted or manacled.
Oh yeah that's right. Id forgotten the original responder said about objects. It's just weird that the tentacles are objects that are attached to a creature but not an object like a door or barrel.
Hello all. My first post here.
I love the War Priest class as it allows me great fighting skills & fantastic array of offensive, defensive and healing spells. My favourite is Spirit Guardians.
So heres what happened in last nights session:
We came across a Roper and i had Spirit Guardians up already. There was a turn where both the main body and tentacles were within the area of SGs effect. If it launched a tentacle at another player through my SG area effect.... do both the tentace and the beast take damage? In this case the tentacles only has 10hp and wouldve died before grappling other players The DM ruled no but they both have HP so whats the story there?
And one other scenario during the same game we were fighting umberhulks and i had my same SGs on but the were trying to burrow through the rock to get to us. The tunnel was 5ft wide where i was and the Umberhulk had entered the furious angel zone of the SGs. Because they are spirits and therefore immaterial do they still damage the umberhulks where he is burrowing?
Sorry if these sorts of questions has been asked before. But want to know what the rulings on those 2 things are coz i use SGs quite a bit.
Officially, the rulings are whatever your DM says. On the first point, I would agree with them because the tentacle is not a creature - it is a part of a creature which can be attacked specifically if you specifically target it. The Roper has already taken damage from your spell, and that spell deals damage to a creature only once per turn. In the second scenario I would also agree with your DM. My understanding is that no spell effect extends through total cover unless it specifically says that it does. From the PHB: "A spell's effect expands in straight lines from the point of origin. If no unblocked straight line extends from the point of origin to a location within the area of effect, that location isn't included in the spell's area. To block one of these imaginary lines, an obstruction must provide total cover". I can't think what spells do penetrate total cover, but they are few and far between.
Actually Sacred Flame says targets gain no cover from the effect.
But thanks for the clarification. That does make sense when you put it that way.
What about when a tentacle tries to attack me solely but the main body is not in the radius.
Wouldnt the tentacle take damage from the SG then?
Sacred flame ignores cover, but requires that you can see the target, which means you would need a way to see something behind a closed door. Possible, but a challenge.
If a roper's tentacle entered your SG zone, then the creature might take damage. The rules get iffy here because the tentacle is actually just an attack with range 50ft; it doesn't clearly indicate that the roper's extended body is now located in all the spaces between you and it, but logic dictates that the tentacle must reach in to get you, so there the roper is. Whether the damage would go to the creature or to the tentacle is also not really layed out in the rules, so personally I would go with whichever seems cooler - or I'd just let the player decide which they would rather. There are not really enough tentacle creatures around to come up with a hard and fast rule. Big tentacles like a Kraken I would lean towards the tentacle taking the hit, roper size and I would lean towards creature. Cutting a roper tentacle is really a means of escaping the thing, not an actual feasible way of hurting it.
The ropers tentacles have seperate HP to the creature as well though
Correct: but the tentacles aren't "creatures", they have HP as an object (much like a lasso, net or set of manacles). Spirit Guardians don't do anything against "objects", and thus would be unhelpful if you were lasso'd, netted or manacled.
Oh yeah that's right. Id forgotten the original responder said about objects. It's just weird that the tentacles are objects that are attached to a creature but not an object like a door or barrel.