So I am still thinking over my ruling on half-height Area spells.
In our last session, I allowed a one-yard-high Stench spell, instead of the normal 4-yard height. This allowed the PCs to stand in a Stench that troubled their ratty opponents but not the PCs.
At the same time, I didn't allow a reduced-height Mass Sleep spell* to be cast.
I'm still not sure allowing partial-height Area spells that affect air, etc. are a great idea.
But at the same time, I'm not seeing a lot of abuse, here. Great tactics, sure. The oddity of, say, a one-yard-high Blackout spell so allow the PCs to see around them but otherwise annoy short opponents seems fairly interesting.
But I'm curious - does anyone else see abuses that can happen from allowing half-height battlefield-changing spells, with an exception that disallows Instantaneous spells like Mass Sleep or Turn Zombie or spells like that?
* Nevermind that Mass Sleep doesn't necessarily need to hit the head to be effective, although that does seem logically and thematically appropriate.
I'm in favor of shorter-height Area spells. It's not really any different than choosing parts of an area of effect, but I'd restrict height selection to 1-yard increments up to 4. Anything taller would of course multiply casting cost.
ReplyDeleteGlad to see how you've ruled it. Now I'm curious to see what abuses my players can come up with as well.
Me too. So far I can only see the abuse I cut off - casting low-height or high-height instaneous spells to put shorter (or flying) foes to sleep without hitting the PCs in the same hex and so on.
DeleteWe've seen 'upper 2 yards only' Smoke spells so that PCs fit under the smoke and siege beasts did not
ReplyDeleteAny issues you've found with that?
DeleteI'll see if I can get relevant people to respond, from my perspective it seemed it work okay but was overly cautious not going for the jugular play
DeleteI had the Siege beasts roll vs IQ to figure out that there was a less smoky area to duck into. It downplayed their abilities quite a bit without bothering the PC's but I didn't mind. Seems in keeping with how a wizard ought to operate but there's definitely cheese potential there with a short party if you let it get too granular.
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