Can someone explain to me exactly how this works? Take for example a Powerball.
A) If you have to have LOS on all people inside the area of effect to hit them, can't you just obscure part of your vision so you don't hit friends in melee?
A2) What about an invisible person in the area of effect?
B) And if just LOS to the center of the area of effect is enough, can you hurt people directly on the other side of a door you can see?
It seems to me that neither A nor B is really desirable, but how do you deal with that as a GM?
Full Version: LOS and Direct Area of Effect attacks
There have been an unending number of discussions on this board about what constitutes line of sight for spell targeting purposes, and none of them have come up with any solid consensus about what the right 'canon' rules are.
That said, there are references in one of the FAQs that say that using AR to block LOS to just your friends for the purposes of casting should not work. I can see no real fluff reason why it wouldn't, but I follow this guidance as well because otherwise it makes AOE spells too effective.
My personal interpretation of LOS for casting is this:
That said, there are references in one of the FAQs that say that using AR to block LOS to just your friends for the purposes of casting should not work. I can see no real fluff reason why it wouldn't, but I follow this guidance as well because otherwise it makes AOE spells too effective.
My personal interpretation of LOS for casting is this:
[ Spoiler ]
QUOTE (Apathy @ May 28 2010, 07:45 PM) 
There have been an unending number of discussions on this board about what constitutes line of sight for spell targeting purposes, and none of them have come up with any solid consensus about what the right 'canon' rules are.
That said, there are references in one of the FAQs that say that using AR to block LOS to just your friends for the purposes of casting should not work. I can see no real fluff reason why it wouldn't, but I follow this guidance as well because otherwise it makes AOE spells too effective.
My personal interpretation of LOS for casting is this:
That said, there are references in one of the FAQs that say that using AR to block LOS to just your friends for the purposes of casting should not work. I can see no real fluff reason why it wouldn't, but I follow this guidance as well because otherwise it makes AOE spells too effective.
My personal interpretation of LOS for casting is this:
[ Spoiler ]
Your interpretation seems sensible, but how do you handle a mage holding his fingers before his eyes to screen out part of the area of effect? I'm having trouble describing why it wouldn't work, but it feels wrong somehow.
QUOTE (Ascalaphus @ May 28 2010, 02:15 PM)
Your interpretation seems sensible, but how do you handle a mage holding his fingers before his eyes to screen out part of the area of effect? I'm having trouble describing why it wouldn't work, but it feels wrong somehow.
I don't have an in-game fluff reason for why it wouldn't work, but I don't like it, and I don't allow it in my games. I'd tell the players before-hand so they're not surprised by what sounds like an arbitrary ruling.
This was originally documented in the SR3 FAQ (http://www.shadowrun4.com/resources/sr3faq.shtml). For your convenience I'll reprint that portion of text below:
[ Spoiler ]
That's very helpful.
That's a fairly nice criterion to apply. It can be applied to lots of situations, actually, now that I'm thinking about it.
QUOTE
A magician who plays these sorts of mind games with himself is asking for it--any attempt to thwart the intent of a spell simply causes it to fail outright, but the caster gets slammed with the Drain anyway.
That's a fairly nice criterion to apply. It can be applied to lots of situations, actually, now that I'm thinking about it.
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