Author Topic: Wall spells, do you have to see Where you put it?  (Read 1259 times)

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Offline Lorgalis

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Wall spells, do you have to see Where you put it?
« on: June 18, 2017, 03:39:27 AM »
Hi

My group had an interesting discussion last night: can you stand below a balcony and cast a wall of fire that rests on the balcony floor? Do you have to see the surface you want it to rest on? Or if you are in a narrow corridor and see a large room at the end of it, can you cast a wall of fire that extends left and right in that room Even if you cant see most of the floor you want it to rest on?


Offline intothatdarkness

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Re: Wall spells, do you have to see Where you put it?
« Reply #1 on: June 18, 2017, 09:39:45 PM »
I'm sure some groups have complex formulae and the like for determining this, but I'm a minimalist in most such matters and had a simple answer: the caster had to give me the distance she wanted the wall of fire (using your example) to cover. If it was too high, I didn't care too much (in other words she didn't have to know the exact thickness of the balcony to hit its floor). If the casting point was too low (below the floor), I'd tell her the spell didn't come off because it was cast into solid material. For the room example, I'd make her specify how long the wall was to be. If it was too long, it spanned the room. If it was too short, there was a gap enemies could get through.
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Offline Lorgalis

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Re: Wall spells, do you have to see Where you put it?
« Reply #2 on: June 19, 2017, 08:35:47 AM »
Yea, im also usually a minimalist. I allowed the magician to cast his spell right away, but then I started thinking about the fact that I've been a rolemaster GM for 25 years, and I didn't know the answer to such a trivial thing as: can you cast a wall spell if you're blindfolded? Can you cast telekinesis on an object in a pitch black room if someone described it to you and told you its location? Or if there was a door in a pitch black room, could you cast undoor II on it without touching it, and never having seen it?

Offline Peter R

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Re: Wall spells, do you have to see Where you put it?
« Reply #3 on: June 19, 2017, 09:17:47 AM »
In the RMC spell law table 04-02 gives a -20 to the base spell roll if the target is "Detected but not sighted" using that as the guide the balcony qualifys as detected, the caster knows where it is but the caster does not have the floor in sight.

The room and firewall counts as having 'partial cover' as it is not all in sight. That is a -10 to BAR.

Just like intothatdarkness if the described dimensions turned out to less than the width of the room then people could go around it.
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Offline Peter R

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Re: Wall spells, do you have to see Where you put it?
« Reply #4 on: June 19, 2017, 09:32:51 AM »
Yea, im also usually a minimalist. I allowed the magician to cast his spell right away, but then I started thinking about the fact that I've been a rolemaster GM for 25 years, and I didn't know the answer to such a trivial thing as: can you cast a wall spell if you're blindfolded? Can you cast telekinesis on an object in a pitch black room if someone described it to you and told you its location? Or if there was a door in a pitch black room, could you cast undoor II on it without touching it, and never having seen it?

My answer to the pitch black room scenario is not immediately.

As described the spell caster has not detected the door in any way so they cannot target it but if they cast Location I from detecting ways and then detected the door then they could then cast Undoor II on it with just the -20 for Detected but not seen.

That would be my determination.
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Offline Lorgalis

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Re: Wall spells, do you have to see Where you put it?
« Reply #5 on: June 19, 2017, 10:18:39 AM »
In the RMC spell law table 04-02 gives a -20 to the base spell roll if the target is "Detected but not sighted" using that as the guide the balcony qualifys as detected, the caster knows where it is but the caster does not have the floor in sight.

The room and firewall counts as having 'partial cover' as it is not all in sight. That is a -10 to BAR.

Just like intothatdarkness if the described dimensions turned out to less than the width of the room then people could go around it.

Ok, good answer, but would you treat the floor as a target? Do you need to roll a BAR to place a firewall somewhere? I normally just say it fails if you roll 01-02, cause it's not an attack spell.

Offline Peter R

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Re: Wall spells, do you have to see Where you put it?
« Reply #6 on: June 19, 2017, 12:26:38 PM »
I would say the place you want to spell to appear is the target. You then have one rule for whether the target is an unseen foe you want to cast sleep on in a pitch black room or a door you want to vaporise.
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Offline Spectre771

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Re: Wall spells, do you have to see Where you put it?
« Reply #7 on: July 10, 2017, 09:53:23 AM »
When casting the wall spell, it usually has the dimensions for it.  10'x10'x1' etc.  For casting into a room at the end of the hall, if the floor is visible through the open doorway, then the wall will form at the point, 5' to either side of the visible point.  If it's something solid like stone or earth, and the height is too high, it could burst through the ceiling.  If it's softer material like water, fire, air, it would most likely only go as high as the ceiling (with fire possibly burning through if the spell is able to burn long enough). 

If I recall, the description of the wall spell is "the equivalent of a 10'x10'x1' wall of..."  If the room is only 8' high, then the actual wall would be like 11'wide x 8'high x 1' thick.  If cast in a hallway, it would fill wall to wall, floor to ceiling, but be thicker than 1' as excess material fills in.

We wouldn't require the caster to be able to see the entire 10' wide span of the floor.
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