The rules say > A spells description specifies it's area of effect, which typically has one of five different shapes and > Typically, a point of origin is a point in space, but some spells have an area whose origin is a creature or object.
Typically allows for shapes other than the 5 defined ones
and the second allows for spells to emanate from a location that is larger than a singular point in space
@illustro On the basis that the common definition of radius is used exclusively to describe the size of a circle or sphere. Using it to describe any other shape is non-standard.
@illustro It doesn't mean that it can't be used, but odds are that it isn't used. Can you provide me an example f anywhere in the rules that a pentagonal shape is used for an area?
The rules describe those shapes because those are the shapes that the designers envisioned when creating areas for spells and other effects
@illustro Argh, I lied. I"m jumping in. If a player wants to use a shape that isn't 'standard', that's fine if the DM allows it. But that's going to be up to the DM and the player and not within the existing standard rule base.
I'm playing 5th edition D&D as the Dungeon Master for my son and his friends, and I have never played the game before. Is a map/grid required for all actions?
If, say, one of the players is inspecting the dead horses from the Starter Set adventure, do they have a certain number of spaces they ca...
"In combat, players can often rely on your descriptions to visualize where their characters are in relation to their surroundings and their enemies. Some complex battles, however, are easier to run with visual aids, the most common of which are miniatures and a grid. If you like to construct model terrain, build three-dimensional dungeons, or draw maps on large vinyl mats, you should also consider using miniatures."
The square grid is optional, obviously, because there also exists the option for gridless or hex. but it is assumed in the rules that a square grid is being used
Perhaps showing my age here, but in "The Good Old Days", 10-foot squares were a standard map size. Each square on the map was 10 feet, and a 10-foot wide corridor was normal.
Now, having started gaming again, it seems 5-foot squares are standard.
So my question is: when did this change happen? ...
Just to make sure y'all aren't talking past each other: Is everyone talking about how they'd practically run things at a table or is this a theoretical discussion?
@NautArch For me it's both. The idea that there are only 5 predefined allowed shapes according to the game is not founded in the rules.
With a spell like forbiddance, the shape is entirely freeform and at the discretion of the caster. The DM may make adjustments to that freeform shape to translate it into something workable on a grid (be it square or hex based).
@NautArch It's up to the DM on how to translate that shape onto the grid, because square grids make for fun times when trying to use orthogonal and diagonal directions consistently. But that is primarily due to the limitations of trying to project a 3D shape onto a space onto a 2D surface.
(which is a physical limitation on the world we live in unfortunately)
TBH, If someone says I want a 25-gon zone of forbiddance covering the full 40,000 sq ft, I'm going to say "sure", get an idea of how big of an area that is, and then say great, noone can teleport within 150 - 200ft of you
Teleporting is no-longer a valid way of sneaking up on this location
@illustro Well, we were talking about Arms of Hadar, but then that translated itself into "you can totally have spells with [incredibly specific shapes] because math says so!" (then, in musical theatre voices) "No you can't" "Yes I can!" "No you can't" "Yes I caaaaaannn!"
The group I DM for (7 characters - Bard, Cleric, Druid, Fighter, Ranger, Rogue, Wizard - all level 7) will soon go up against an Adult White Dragon. (They don't know yet. Heh.)
I would like to gently introduce them to the art of researching enemies and preparing for encounters, with the help of t...
@TheDragonOfFlame look, you haven’t lived until you’ve untangled a skein of silk (which is slippery as all get out) every three stitches and that was wound on a ball winder
I’ve seen some horrifying stuff and actually, I might have a picture of one incident around but I don’t want to look at all
@Someone_Evil I think it is similar to the discussion in re arms of hadar. Oddly, there is in Volos Guide one of the aasimar whose luminous fire seems to damage themselves as well as all nearby, but as I am away from books I'd need to read through it again.
@BardicWizard the last time I used yarn was in grade 5 and we had to make flowers out of glueing it to paper. Ugh i hated that it was so messy with all the glue and it didint even look good after
@TheDragonOfFlame the last time I used yarn was either about a minute ago or about 3 days ago depending on whether we’re counting crochet thread, which is what my current project is worked in
As an example, a ring of Animal Friendship costs 10,800 gp, while right below it the ring of Blinking costs 27,000 gp, and yet while they're nearly identical as far as function, they don’t scale the same.
If I were following the rules for creating magic items, I’m assuming I’d get a cost of spell...
@NautArch Wait, is industrial knitting like working in the pattern industry or the yarn industry? Or is it something different? Cause if I ever actually make a career out of yarn it would be involved with pattern writing
@BardicWizard My version of industrial knitting is designing programs for machines to knit garments. We knit ourselves using whole garment knitting machines, which are like 3d printers for textiles.
@KorvinStarmast But yeah, ruins things like Dissonant whispers if they opt to attack. Unless you opt not to require the 0 movement.
@ThomasMarkov Beat you to an answer on that ghost question by 10 seconds
@BardicWizard you nit with industrial strength yarn. Its like you knit really strong jackets and scarves to protect construction workers and military personelle (thats a lie dont listen to me)
@ThomasMarkov further proof: I have a hank of crochet thread on a cone rn for a project. I frogged one round of a motif, while leaving one end attached to the work and the other on the cone, and it still tangled so horribly that I had to frog the rest of the work to get the working yarn free for detangling. As I said, stranger shapes than your algebraic topology
@NautArch Mercury poisoning would have been good explanation. More like, this person was on the same page as everyone else, but just reading a different book.
So, Star Trek Adventures campaign last week delved into SHIP COMBAT. The rules are a weird mix of crunchy and squishy. We had a shuttle get absolutely vaporized by a stray shot, then discovered we were doing it wrong.
Then we unloaded a full spread of quantum torpedoes into a ship at point-blank range and barely scratched the paint, and then discovered we were doing that wrong too.
THEN we spent all of our Momentum points boosting a single attack to try to do meaningful damage to something, and then discovered we weren't allowed to have that many Momentum points, and also were totally cheating on action economy.
Conclusion: Either this system is kind of a mess, or it's intended to be played only by actual Vulcans.
@MarkWells my advice for this sort of situation: ignore the rules, collectively narrate an epic space battle, then figure out what’s wrong after the game. Everyone will have way more fun that way
@NautArch can't a paladin let loose with a smite on an OA? 👀
@AncientSwordRage No air to transmit a shock wave. Heat? Yeah. Radiation? Yeah. Presuming that your posited nuclear bomber is not using air breathing propulsion like a B-52 or a Backfire.
@TheDragonOfFlame If we'd just ignored the mechanics and made something up, we wouldn't have figured out what's wrong. We're trying to make the mechanics work for us.
In this case, I think the problem is mostly presentation: the rules are poorly organized. For example, they start by saying that the turn order works exactly the same way for ship encounters as any other situation: characters on either side alternate turns until one side runs out of people, then anyone still left on the other side gets to act, and then the round ends and everything resets.
But NPC ships don't typically have a bridge crew (that's us players at the table), so how do characters on that side act?
Well, in a sidebar at the bottom of a page later in the chapter they mention that NPC ships should just get multiple turns each, according to their size.
If you miss that, and naively assume that the ship is a single "character", then the players have a huge action-economy advantage.
@TheDragonOfFlame I think of the style, and I don't remember where I encountered the term, as "compressing for archival". The minimal way to write chapter 6 is to say it's just like this thing from chapter 5 plus this other thing from chapter 3 plus this one thing that's unique. And to be fair, the STA core rulebook is almost 400 pages, so it's understandable they'd want to save wordcount.
