Area effect spells and line of sight Options

[Shrike30]

This topic has nothing to do with trying to drop AE spells on people around the corner down a hallway :P

Our mage decided the other day that the most effective way he had of neutralizing a bunch of people in the same elevator he was in was stunball. Anybody he could see, obviously, was a valid target. In our games, we've ruled that the CASTER is also a valid target because he's got LOS to his own aura, which surrounds him.

The oddball questions come from how, exactly, Line of Sight is defined.

Can he protect his sammie buddy in the elevator by having the sammie stand behind him, where he can't "see" him but you can draw LOS on the Astral (and in real life, actually)?

Is your "LOS" just a cone that extends from your eyes outwards, or does it radiate from them in a sphere (keeping with the eyes being the center of LOS prevents things like sticking your hand around the corner and frying somebody you can't see physically)?

Do some of his targets have cover if they're got another person standing between him and the mage, thus providing a penalty for some of the people in the area of effect?

If so, how would you figure this in, since the mage only makes one roll?

[stevebugge]

I think it is the field of vision primarily, though just awareness of a target may be enough in the case of obscured targets. We've never had a situation where the caster would be caught in their own AE spell, mostly because my players just prefer single target spells for precision. I believe mages are supposed to use cover modifiers for casting, though you make a good point in the single roll issue. In SR4 perhaps the targets could have the cover modifier as extra dice to oppose the spell.

[bustedkarma]

IIRC in the Book, it talks about a caster being able to select targets for AOE, using some kinda goofy ass radiowave analogy to explain how it works. Something about "tuning" his spell into the "signals" of Auras he wants to affect.

In my game, we take it on a spell by spell basis. I think if your casting some AOE Fire spell, and Unholy Softballs of Flame are falling from the sky, then everyone caught in the radius of the spell is gonna take damage.

I think you could take Stunball either way. I'm thinking it is basically using magical energy to mess with the CNS or some such shit, and cause you to take a nap. I think you could be mildly selective in who your targets were.

[mfb]

it talks about what? where?

[blakkie]

The sidebar "Theories On The Nature of Magic", page 166-167. In part this reads:

[bustedkarma]

what he said.

[Dashifen]

It works fine for indirects, you're just tuning in on the frequency of a location and not a target. thus the target can dodge out of the way if they get lucky.

[blakkie]

[James McMurray]

That quote in no way addresses the ability to leave targets out of a spell's area if you can see them.

[Dashifen]

[mfb]

good god. that's the worst metaphor ever.

[James McMurray]

good god. that's the most obvious overstatement ever.

[blakkie]

[James McMurray]

You just need a facing decision at the moment he casts. For that it's pretty easy to pick an arc and include everything whose location intersects with that arc and the spell's area.

[mfb]

i dunno. if you allow that, why not allow holding a hand in front of your eyes to block certain targets?

[Apathy]

[James McMurray]

Sure, pick a subset of your arc, and then we'll make a roll of some sort to ensure that your head didn't get jostled by your bullet dodging and/or the people you're trying to avoid didn't slip over into that area as part of their bullet dodging (or whatever other reasons they may have for moving around).

I would let a mage maneuver himself so that the people he doesn't want to hit have full cover from where he's standing. There isn't really a big difference between those two except that one requires movement and the other a free action.

[mfb]

not a houserule. SR4 page 173 notes that visibility modifiers, including cover, are applied to the spellcasting test.

i think allowing mages to block their LOS with their hands, or even turn their heads to avoid seeing friendly targets, opens a massive can of worms that would lead to horrible abuse in many gaming groups. the only way i could see it working is if you just applied a flat penalty to the spellcasting test for each target you want to disinclude. and even then, i wouldn't allow it in my games (mainly because i use custom metamagics to achieve that end result).

[blakkie]

[Big D]

Heh. That's why I prefer AOE that works like D&D fireball (3.0+). LOS from caster is used to determine allowed detonation points. Once a point is chosen, caster LOS doesn't matter a hill of beans; the detonation point is used for determining LOS/cover to all targets.

That said, based on RAW, I would call AOE spells to be like a magic missile that hits any target within the caster's LOS and the detonation point's range, regardless of whether the detonation point has LOS on the target. Crazy, but that's what it looks like to me.

And yes, RAW does *appear* to let you do the "I can't see you" trick. Lame, and I think the rule needs to be clarified, but it looks legal. I would recommend that any player trying to do that face a roll to determine if he actually succeeded in blocking his view of a friendly during the middle of a shootout. If said friendly is grappling with a target, I would expect the TH to be so high that only a longshot roll could pull it off.

[James McMurray]

[James McMurray]

[blakkie]

[James McMurray]

There you have it. If the caster looks away, counterspelling is broken. I actually like that, as it makes it possible for someone to sneak up o the party with a power ball. Since it takes a free action (IIRC) to declare counterspelling, the mage may sometimes find himself having to redeclare while in combat.

If you need a facing all the time in a combat, minis are the way to go (with a few house rules thrown into the mix to ensure that it doesn't go haywire). The only house rule I can think of offhand that we use is that you get one free spin per initiative pass that you can use if someone tries to move behind or around you or you otherwise need to be looking somewhere.

D&D's 360 degree field of vision works well for D&D, but it also has its downfalls (like never being able to sneak up on someone once you shift to a battlemat without introducing house rules involving facing), and "how is it I can see everything around me during combat but not outside of it?"

Neither options is "the right one." I've found that a mix of the two works best for me.

[blakkie]