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Old 04-18-2020, 04:59 PM   #11
Dalin
 
Join Date: Dec 2009
Location: Saint Paul, MN
Default Re: Area spells on boats?

Thanks everyone (and especially Kromm) for jumping in on this one. Kromm's rule of thumb makes good sense to me, though I may allow people to fill the decks of their boats just because it could be cool. (Maybe I'll make it a perk for "Sea Druids" or something like that.) But definitely no wheelbarrow Mystic Mist torpedos.

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Originally Posted by benz72 View Post
Good Dr., If you have time and inclination could you please consider and rule on these (admittedly odd and somewhat Munchkiny) questions?

1) Does the orientation of gravity affect the validity of a surface of sufficient area to be the subject of a spell?
Can I cast Sunlight on a wall or slope instead of a floor? What about Rain of X? Does the effect remain normal to the surface? or come directly from overhead?
Back in 2008, Kromm discussed this a bit in this thread (which I didn't find until after my original post). In that case, he said,

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Originally Posted by Kromm View Post
As for surface tilt, I see no reason to favor an orientation. If all other conditions are met, why not allow Area spells on walls or ceilings, or on sloping floors?
Quote:
Originally Posted by benz72 View Post
2) How rigid must a valid subject area be? Can the surface be intentionally flexible? If so, what happens to the spell effect when the surface changes shape? Can I cast Fog onto a tarp and roll it up then unroll it to let a non-mage surprise someone with a few hexes of fog?
2a) If a brittle surface breaks while the subject of spells, what happens to those spells?
As evidence that human minds think in similar ways over the years, it appears that you asked a similar question twelve years ago. Here's the answer you received then:

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Originally Posted by Kromm View Post
I'd call that a terminal condition. I'd treat the magic as being fixed to a specific topology. Stretching out two hexes of magical effect to three dilutes the magic too much and it snuffs out, folding or rolling the surface such that the magic crosses itself interferes with the magic and cancels it, and so on.
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Originally Posted by benz72 View Post
3) How flat must a valid subject surface be? Can a 1 hex Grease be cast on a ~1' diameter shaft? Or a tree trunk?
I didn't see this explicitly addressed anywhere, so I'm just going to think aloud here. A simple way to do this is say that the area is the "ground" but it extends up 4 yards on attached surfaces. So if you have pillars in a hall, they would be slippery for 12 feet up even if you just cast it on the floor. (Just like if you cast Create Fire, there would be blazing flames up that high.) How this works for a hole in the floor is more complicated because it goes down, but it doesn't seem too abusive to be able to flip it over, especially for a spell like Grease.

Interestingly, the spell description for Grease explicitly says that it can be cast on vertical surfaces. That does beg the question of what constitutes a surface. I don't see any immediate problems with casting it on an inflexible curved surface like a tree, pillar, or pipe. Based on Kromm's ruling above, the minimum circumference would be a yard for a 1-hex casting. So you couldn't cast an area spell on the surface of a rope or small pole. If you wanted the bottom yard of a 1-yard circumference tree to be slippery, you could cast Grease on its bottom hex. I'm not seeing any problems with that. With spells like Create Fire and Mystic mist, it is a bit wonkier. This might allow you to create a 1-hex fire around the bottom of a pillar and have flames shoot out four yards in every direction (the spell's "up"). But this is also true if you allow it to be cast vertically at all (like on a wall). There's also the issue of the effect being dispersed over a wider area (and only three feet high), so the flames might be more of a special effect than truly dangerous.

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Originally Posted by benz72 View Post
4) Are surfaces that are 'discontinuous' within their own hex (e.g. stairs, a bed of nails, a hex with a small plinth in it) valid subjects for area spells? If so, do the effects follow some kind of 'best fit' covering over the surface or does the effect anchor at the lowest/nearest altitude and rise up/out from there?
In my game, I would probably say that magic is mysterious and unpredictable in this regard so that I could rule on a case-by-case basis (possibly reverting to a die roll in bizarre situations). With your examples, I would say yes to stairs (the top of the flames is too rough to see the actual steps, but it would slope down or up with the steps. A bed of nails would extend four yards up from the base of the nails (assuming that was a valid surface). Same for the plinth (no weird spike in the fire).
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Old 04-18-2020, 10:43 PM   #12
Tom H.
 
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Join Date: Feb 2009
Location: Central Texas, north of Austin
Default Re: Area spells on boats?

Good research there, Dalin.
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