Topic: Do you let Elemental Walls block some of the element?

[markc]

  I was wondering if you let Elemental Walls block all of the same element, some of the element or none of the same element?
 
 I ask because sometimes to me it makes sense that it would and other times it does not. For examples a fire wall IMHO would block some or all of a fir bolt but a wall of water would not hold back a stream or river. Or would the wall of water hold back a river for a time?


MDC

[Marc R]

The walls IMO block as indicated. . .wind walls offer penalty to fire across, a stone wall is solid cover. . . .a fire wall is at best concealment. . .that kinda thing. . .IMO fire doesn't block fire. . .but stone does block fire.

[Fornitus]

 We use the penalty as stated for arrows for bolts also. Air wall and Water wall give penalties for arrows. We believe this is kinda a reduction in attack due to the energy expended to brake through the barrier. Wall of Fire has no penalty except visual for aiming (IIRC). I might reduce a crit level if it is the opposing element though.   

[providence13]

Maybe an RR for opposing elements.

For elementals, I allow normally allow them to move through their mundane element at listed BMR, or half for earth moving underground. But I don't have that apply to walls. I consider it different magic.

[Thom @ ICE]

I would agree with Providence13's comment.

Water wall blocks* fire.
Fire wall blocks water.
Air wall blocks earth.
Earth wall blocks air.


Blocks in this case is not meant as entirely blocking, but an RR should be considered.

[Marc R]

It may be a good use for the spell vs spell rules, like "I put out his wall of fire with a water bolt" would seem to fit those rules perfectly. . .assuming you targeted the wall with the other spell, if you fire across a fire wall, rather than at it, I'm not so sure.

I don't think opposition elements are even.

Ice/Earth/Stone wall is better at blocking anything at all, because it's solid. . .a wall of Ice, stone or earth goes into the "Breaking holes in structures" rules vs any physical attack at all.

A water wall would block less effectively than a solid wall, but is still a dense wall of matter, and stops or dramatically slows a lot of things.

A fire wall is destructive energy, but has no substance, it's not even a gas.

If the wall is high enough, and the angle is good, fire would certainly be concealment, if not cover. . .

But a Water Wall would have far more detrimental effect on a fire bolt fired at a target beyond it IMO than a Fire wall would have on a water bolt fired on a target behind it.

The fact some of the wall spells have missile or bolt penalties associated with them, while others do not, is not IMO an accident.

[providence13]

You're probably right about the opposing elements. The RR is just a quick solution to speed the game along. The result could be a penalty to the bolt. Totally quick HR.


Any wall could come down if you do enough damage from an attack. Or at least bore a hole through it...
How about a Water Bolt Spell Mastered into a Pressurized water drill? I'm going to have to write that down.

[Thom @ ICE]

A fire wall is destructive energy, but has no substance, it's not even a gas.
If the wall is high enough, and the angle is good, fire would certainly be concealment, if not cover. . .

In my interpretation, a fire wall is not a fire on the ground generating flames above it, it is the essence of the flame itself floating in the air and creating the wall. While it has no physical substance, anything flamable passing through it would be subject to the flame as it directly hit by a fireball of sorts.  Water passing through it would most likely end up as steam on the other side (unless the water itself was magical). 

Similarly I would have earth or stone become disrupted by an air wall, and an earth wall to block the wind.

Yes, earth can physically block other elements, but it does no damage itself.  Air can disrupt only solid objects, liquids would be minimally impacted and flame would pass through it without significant effect.

Water can block fire by extinquishing it, but a flaming torch could still pass through the water - it just would not be flaming anymore.

[markc]

 I think that is a good question, is elemental "element" different from normal element? And does it have different properties?
MDC

[Marc R]

The walls you can pass through, Air, Water and Fire. . .either have or do not have associated modifiers to moving through them, firing across them, etc. . .the solid walls don't, but that's because they are presumed to offer complete protection up to the point you break or hole them (and they offer rules on breaking or holing them).

So RAW wise, Stone/Earth/ice walls qualify as solid cover, water wall is a serious impediment, Air wall is a moderate impediment. . .and fire is no impediment at all. It causes zero modifications to attacks across it. . .it does cause damage if you try to cross it, so you can use it tactically to avoid melee by putting it between you and an attacker.

I think the rest here qualify as cool house rules, but a super hot fire wall that incinerated arrows crossing it, or a wind wall that acted as an elemental shield vs Earth attacks (beyond  the missile fire penalty it already causes in RAW) would be interesting higher level versions of the as is spells from the RAW, but in the RAW, they don't affect missiles unless the spell description states so, nor have any more dramatic effect on other elements.

That said, the "Conflicting spell effects" rules from SL could be used in the sense of "I use water bolt to put out his fire wall.". . . .or the GM could even state that in their opinion firing  a water bolt through a fire wall or a fire bolt through an ice wall qualify as "conflicting effects" and could cancel one (or the other, depending on roll).

Keep in mind though that ice/earth/stone walls are not magical effects, once cast it's a nonmagical permanent wall of ice/earth/stone. . .water wall creates a wall of water that stands for the duration, then the water splashes and runs away, it doesn't magically evaporate off. . .so the active element of the spell is normal material of the sort. . .i.e. a Wall of Stone is made of stone, not magic elemental stone that reacts overtly to the presence of air.

[Thom @ ICE]

If there are rules indicating damage is delivered by the fire to anyone crossing through it, shouldn't that arrow receive the same damage (or any other object passing through it)?  Just because the RAW doesn't specify that missile weapons are impacted, doesn't mean that they are not. 

Do the RAW specifically state that missiles are not impacted by the elemental wall?  If they are not mentioned, then I would have fire walls effect arrows passing through them - which could also result in normal arrows becoming flaming arrows after passing through the fire wall.

As for the opposing element not having a major effect and causing the need for RR I am sure you are 100% correct to the RAW, but I personally like the idea regardless of the RAW.

[Marc R]

Just keeping the RAW vs the Cool yet house rule line clear.

I think the line of "Explicitly says" is safer than "Doesn't explicitly refute". . .like there's logic to saying a light spell cast on a target would make them hard to fire missiles at, because they are bright and shiny and hard to directly look at. . .or it could contrarily argue logic that a lit up target is easier to shoot at. . .I've seen both, both make sense and are pretty cool, but they are house rules, beyond the narrow view of the RAW, in which light cast on a target does not offer a missile penalty (or bonus). Any GM who chooses to go with that is perfectly correct to do whatever makes their game fun, in fact, I think the whole point of having a GM is to go beyond the RAW. . .but it's not RAW.

In terms of missiles and fire walls trying to shoot someone behind 10' high opaque concealment is tough already. . . and if you have an angle where the wall isn't blocking line of sight, you can shoot around it.

[Thom @ ICE]

I'll take that response to indicate that it does not state any exceptions, and therefore my interpretation would be that anything trying to pass through an elemental wall should be subject to the effect of that wall - including other elements or missile objects.  The extent of the effect needs to be ruled based upon the materials and elements involved.

[markc]

  I think this is one of those things that when the game was created back in the 80's people did not think a lot about. Instead they thought "****" a wall of "element" and it was new and exciting. Now we try and do interesting things with the wall.


 I also try and remember that the space in which a RM spell is described is very small and in some cases the spells have spawned sections in other RM books.
MDC

[providence13]

To that point, markc, sometimes a RR is the quickest resolution.

We've found that whenever a call is made, it needs to be similar each and every time the instance occurs. Otherwise, it's not fair and the PC's never really know where they stand. (You know what I mean).

If the issue is magic, then normally a RR will suffice and the game can go on. "Does my waterbolt penetrate the wall of fire?"

On other issues with even greater ambiguity, we use a secret weapon.

"Dice me for it".

Highest roll wins that particular rules argument at the time. The game moves on.. This way, a precedent for rules doesn't come back to bite us later down the road.

I almost never ask for it and the players don't use it much either.
As a GM, I would like the rules to back me up, or at least the precedents that were used in past games. This let's the players know that they're in a real world with understandable laws.. mostly.
  The players also know that if they really disagree (not just don't have all the facts) but don't want to detract from our game, then they have an angle. It comes up once every 3rd to 4th game and that's good for us.

[Marc R]

Water and Air walls have explicit effects given vs missiles (-80 and -50 respectively) and fire wall does not. . .it does state that the wall is opaque. . .so as complete concealment it's full soft cover and worth 40 DB bonus, so almost as much of an impediment as an air wall is.

That said. . . .a Spell A crit is equal to 10 hits of structural integrity damage. . .if you actually applied that vs anything crossing it'd indeed ash all arrows crossing it. . .but it'd also likely burn all your gear to ash if you decided to apply those 10 hits to each and every object you're carrying. . .or at least have you exit the far side of the fire wall with all of your gear on fire. . .(unless you use the "aura" issue to say all objects on you are immune unless the critical result you roll says they catch fire)

Which is the risk of using logic to extend a spell out past what it explicitly offers. . ."Inflicts an 'A' Heat crit on anyone crossing it" becomes far more nasty if you have it incinerating every inanimate object that crosses it, and IMO makes the spell more powerful than a 4th level spell should be.

If the GM wants to take that extra step, and it works for them, I'm all for it, but anything past the 40 modifier for full soft cover is GM call, not RAW, in my opinion, and stretching the spell to make it more powerful.

[markc]

Marc R;
 The above example of burning off your equipment was the D&D way we played way back when and made Walls a lot more deadly.
 I have not seen the ruling in RM that all equipment must make saves when going through a wall but that might do the trick. The other trick I thought of was a Wall attack table like those for weapons to provide more damage for the fire to the person and notes that for specific values equipment has to make a save.


MDC

[Thom @ ICE]

If the GM wants to take that extra step, and it works for them, I'm all for it, but anything past the 40 modifier for full soft cover is GM call, not RAW, in my opinion, and stretching the spell to make it more powerful.

As far as I am concerned, you've clarified the RAW aspect, and also helped me confirm how I would handle something should it come up (which would be having anyone or anything - including gear - passing through the fire wall perform an RR to see if it was impacted by the fire in addition to the stated soft cover).

[Marc R]

MarkC, technically, according to the "Aura" rule, all gear on a person, or in hand, is part of the global RR they make as a person. . . .and so you make one A heat critical for the character jumping through the fire wall, and unless the crit result reads something like "On fire" or "leg clothing burned off" or "All hair and hats burned off" then the fire fails to ignite anything on your person.

Which is super unrealistic, but the meta rules way around forcing loads of sub RRs each time. . .ala "And finally, with the 50th roll Your left shoelace fails it's RR and catches fire".

That said, non magical items not held by people make RRs at 1st level, so will often fail and catch fire. There's rules in the back of RMC spell law for extending elemental damage beyond the target to it's effects on the surrounding area and gear if desired. .

IMO those rules have minimal color effects with all the elements except lightning and fire, which are far more dangerous when treated in a semi realistic manner. (Fire in those rules is rather nasty, and doesn't even include smoke effects, which would be even worse.)

[markc]

Thanks for the RMC Spell Law note I have to take a look at my PDF.


 I can also see freezing being a problem with some potions and other liquid's and I agree that fire is the worst (best to do damage to most things). I would still like to see an attack chart for various walls with some special notation that specifically says items must save and a level they must save at. That way it is not just the spell rank they must save vs but some other random factor determined by the chart and something that can be changed.
MDC